Apple releases 16-inch Macbook Pro, Motorola announces a new Razr, and Disney+ launches

This week on The Vergecast, Nilay, Dieter, and Paul go through the products announced this week including Apple's 16-inch Macbook Pro and Motorola's new Razr foldable phone. Julia Alexander then joins the show to cover the initial launch of Disney+ and the ongoing streaming wars. Stories this week: The everything town in the middle of nowhere Apple’s 16-inch MacBook Pro is here, and it has a good keyboard A fully loaded 16-inch MacBook Pro costs $6,099 Apple’s new Mac Pro is shipping next month Google’s rollout of RCS chat for all Android users in the US begins today Motorola resurrects the Razr as a foldable Android smartphone John Carmack stepping down as CTO of Oculus to work on AI Disney+ experiencing ‘unable to connect’ errors on launch day The Mandalorian’s first episode shows that Star Wars can work on the small screen Disney+ doesn’t have to sell anyone on streaming How to get a year of free Disney+ from Verizon The Simpsons’ aspect ratio is messed up on Disney+ Verizon’s new set-top box is possibly the worst option out there for streaming Apple could bundle news, TV, and music into one subscription as soon as 2020 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.

• 0:00Nilay Patel?

  This week on The Vergecast, we talk about Apple's new 16-inch MacBook Pro, the new Mac Pros coming out in December. We get into the new folding Motorola Razr. Dieter has many emotions about RCS. And then Julia Alexander joins us to talk about the launch of Disney Plus in the streaming wars. It's Vergecast coming up now.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  You're busy. We know that. So we'll keep this quick. Introducing Amex Corporate, now featuring the corporate cash back card. For one annual flat fee, get 1.5% cash back on eligible business purchases, plus intelligent expense management with the unmatched expertise and backing of American Express. Built to simplify, designed to scale. Get started at go.amex slash Amex Corporate. Terms and cap apply.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  Your heart can tell you a lot about your health. Apple Watch Series 12 measures your heart rate every five seconds with the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. So your vitals app, now with heart rate variability, can tell you when something is off. And your readiness score can let you know when to rest and when to push. Hear the story in every heartbeat with Apple Watch Series 12. The features described are for wellness purposes only and not for medical use. iPhone 11 or later required. Based on Apple conducted study of heart rate accuracy, August 2026. Visit apple.com slash Apple Watch Series 12.

• 1:20Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast, flagship podcast of scissor switches. Wow. Yeah, it's a thing. I'm Neil. I'm your friend. Dieter Bone is here in New York. I like butterflies. Interesting. Butterflies are great. They're just notoriously unreliable. If you're trying to depend on a monarch, you know what I'm saying? Paul Miller is here.

• 1:38Speaker 03

  Hello. Cherry MX Browns, please.

• 1:43Nilay Patel?

  All right, we're obviously going to talk about the new MacBook Pro with its updated keyboard, its stubborn insistence on having a touch bar. And the Razr, the Motorola Razr is out. There's Disney Plus launched a big week of news. Before we do that, I just want to call out Verge reporter Josh Jezza, incredible story this week. The everything town in the middle of nowhere. Josh is on this beat of technology companies making like small towns in America do wild things.

• 2:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:12Nilay Patel?

  It's like all the Fox News stories are Josh. He wrote this story about Amazon nomads, the people who just like live in vans buying stuff from like Targets in the middle of nowhere and trying to sell them on Amazon. And he's got this new story about a little town in Montana where all the Amazon prep centers have like located.

• 2:27Speaker 04

  Yeah. So if you don't know, if Amazon, to get a thing in an Amazon warehouse, it has to meet Amazon's like specs for like working in the warehouse. The box has to be the right size, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so there are these prep centers where people will take stuff from Target or wherever it comes from, fix it up so it actually can go in an Amazon warehouse and then ship it off to the Amazon warehouse. And this story is amazing because it's, it's like, there's just one woman in this tiny little town who's like, I could do that. And she just started doing it. And then all of a sudden, the whole town, like all the women in the town started opening up prep centers. It's amazing.

• 2:57Nilay Patel?

  It's impossible to do this story justice. Go read it. I just want to call it out. There's all this like gadgety news and Disney Plus news. Julia Alexander is going to join us later to talk about Disney Plus. There's all that stuff going on, but this is one of those stories that's like, what's the Verge is for, right? Like technology and shopping and like, there's an emergent behavior of just like, the person is like, actually, this is pretty inefficient. Like I just, I just move boxes around. Amazon should be better at this. Go read it. It's really good. Okay. Dieter, you're in town.

• 3:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:26Nilay Patel?

  Because of this computer.

• 3:27Speaker 04

  I am, yeah.

• 3:28Nilay Patel?

  Which I guess in many ways, Dieter is always in town because of the computer. But this, we both have them sitting in front of us. 16 inch MacBook Pros.

• 3:39Speaker 04

  Oh, the 16 inches is weird because I think the 15 inch was like 15.4. So the actual increase in screen size, it looks impressive because the bezels are smaller, but it's actually not that much bigger.

• 3:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. They just went up a number.

• 3:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:52Nilay Patel?

  Like you do.

• 3:53Speaker 04

  It looks good. It's a great screen.

• 3:55Nilay Patel?

  It's a very nice screen. We both got review units. You're working on the review, but just the sort of announcement response to this computer is a story regardless of the value. We'll talk about the review next week, but. People have been waiting a long time for this computer.

• 4:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, long time.

• 4:11Nilay Patel?

  An entire backstory about this keyboard that we're just gonna have to talk about. And I don't know, the theme of Apple, it's, there's so much, there's layers and layers of meaning with this laptop.

• 4:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:24Nilay Patel?

  I was just, here's my sum up of Apple over the past like five years.

• 4:27Speaker 03

  No, Neil, let me try.

• 4:28Speaker 04

  Oh, God.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  You know, in sports movies, I just watched Miracle on Disney Plus last night. You know, in sports movies, the very important thing is that the penultimate game against the Hawks or the Soviet Union, you know, is a horrible defeat.

• 4:46Nilay Patel?

  That, okay, I understand what you're saying.

• 4:49Speaker 03

  Right?

• 4:50Nilay Patel?

  But the arc of a sports movie is not that like they suffer the horrible defeat and then the Mighty Ducks get in a room and they're like, we should just do the obvious thing and win. Right? Like they have to like try hard, they have to like reach into their soul.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  Yes, it was inside of them all along, the power to be.

• 5:08Speaker 04

  The sports movies are inspiring, this is just like, they don't get, Apple doesn't get credit for being inspiring.

• 5:14Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so that was Paul's version of this, which you can believe or not. My version of this is that Apple, John Gruber called it hubris when he was writing up this review.

• 5:25Speaker 04

  It's a good word for it.

• 5:26Nilay Patel?

  It's a good word, that Apple got so far ahead of itself in believing that they could just change behavior.

• 5:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:34Nilay Patel?

  That if Apple just deploys something, it comes true.

• 5:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:37Nilay Patel?

  And that is sometimes accurate.

• 5:39Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:40Nilay Patel?

  Apple takes away the floppy drive, there are no more floppy drives, like, great.

• 5:44Speaker 04

  They did it with the headphone jack, Neil.

• 5:46Nilay Patel?

  I hate you.

• 5:47Speaker 04

  They did it.

• 5:48Nilay Patel?

  I disagree.

• 5:50Speaker 04

  They changed behavior.

• 5:51Nilay Patel?

  No one's wandering the streets being like, I wish I had a CD-ROM. Every day I see someone be like, I wish my phone had a headphone jack.

• 5:58Speaker 04

  But you can't deny that they've changed behavior.

• 6:00Nilay Patel?

  I dislike you.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  Do you think, do you think part of Apple thought that, you know, our touchpads that are pretending to click nowadays, they don't even really click, they just pretend are so good?

• 6:13Nilay Patel?

  They're right about that, though.

• 6:15Speaker 03

  They are. So what if we're on the way to that future? What if that's the future for the keyboard? And we should skate in that direction?

• 6:23Nilay Patel?

  Turns out that they are not right.

• 6:24Speaker 03

  Playing hockey.

• 6:25Nilay Patel?

  Right. What, how much does he want us to even watch? All right. I, I think that's actually step two. I think step one was that they fully believe that they can, they can drive this level of change. Right. And they, they have done it over and over again. I think the change they were actually after was the Mac is obsolete and the iPad and the iPhone are the future. We're going to like push everybody towards it. And they took their eye off the ball of the Mac, which they've all but admitted.

• 6:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:52Nilay Patel?

  Right. The old Mac Pro, like, obviously just like hit a wall, couldn't go any farther. They, they literally kept making the previous generation of the MacBook Air because they, they were like, people keep buying them and we don't know why.

• 7:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:05Nilay Patel?

  Like, they're, they're like, why wouldn't we take this money? But we don't know why you want this garbage computer that we insist on continuing to make with a retina display? So they took their eye off the ball of the Mac because they thought they were going to drive everybody to the iPad. That was like, I would say a medium grade prediction. Maybe that's true. It definitely didn't happen as fast as they thought they could get it done.

• 7:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:26Nilay Patel?

  25 years from now, is that actually true? Like, who knows? But like, lots of people are heading that direction. Okay. Then they were like, what if we make the computers so beautiful that they are impossible to use? Our, our new professional Mac is a, is a cylinder. That's the way, it's, it's hot. We love it.

• 7:44Speaker 03

  A good portion of this is the, the, the blame Johnny Ive theory.

• 7:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So wait, wait, that's layers. I'm just going through the, the, I'm just going through the, the bra. And then we can dive in on the layers. Okay. And then we want to make them thinner and smaller. So we've invented this new keyboard that's super tiny. We don't believe that ports are important. So here's, here's some useless ports.

• 8:08Nilay Patel?

  That are like 10 years ahead of the curve. And we hate Intel, so we're not even that, we're not even going to update the chips inside on Intel's cadence. Every 15 years, we'll like throw you a bone of a new Intel chip. That's where they basically were with the Mac.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  Also, we are in a weird beef with Nvidia that nobody understands.

• 8:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:26Speaker 03

  So we only use.

• 8:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so.

• 8:27Speaker 03

  Radeon sometimes.

• 8:28Nilay Patel?

  So we use AMD chips. We don't want to put a touchscreen on it, but I don't know. Stephanie invented the touch bar, let's throw her a bone. Like, I don't know how this thing.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  Eli has his first touch bar computer that he's actually using instead of just like glancing at, and he's very angry.

• 8:44Nilay Patel?

  It is so dumb. All right, they're in a bad place. What drives the iPhone and iPad? Developers writing apps. What do developers want in Escape Key? Can we change the behavior of every developer in the world by removing the Escape? Like, that's the level of crazy.

• 9:00Speaker 03

  I heard Vim got a shout out.

• 9:02Nilay Patel?

  Vim got a shout out, yes. I mean, they did the thing where they did like vignettes of like, how would you use all this power?

• 9:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:08Nilay Patel?

  Because at this point, you can't just like show people a laptop, right? Like, Apple's thing is always like, what can you do? What Grammy Award winning song are you gonna write today with your huge display? And it's like.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:18Nilay Patel?

  None of them, actually. I'm gonna use GarageBand to just like make clapping sounds. Like, I don't, I don't need 500 tracks. Anyway, so they showed off a lot of like, here's what you do, here's like Xcode, here's simulator. Like, they were like, it's a very powerful laptop.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:31Nilay Patel?

  So Vim got a shout out because they're like, the Escape Key. Okay, well, that, I'm just saying that, that level of belief that desktop computing was over, people moving to the iPad, that they could drive design forward without worrying about the functionality of the tasks on the computer, just clearly bit them.

• 9:50Speaker 04

  The nuance here is there are some places where their desire to push design forward and push desktop computing in a different direction, where rational and in an alternate universe would have actually paid off better. The alternate universe being, one, their keyboard was actually reliable. They wanted us to live in the Star Trek future where you're like, moving your, you know, that's fast, that's what that keyboard is headed towards. And then the USB-C, you know how I feel about USB-C? Don't you? Uh, it's like so much potential, the right thing, that just no one, like, Apple said, this is the right thing to do. And everyone said, yeah, it sure does seem like the right thing to do. And then nobody did it.

• 10:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 10:26Speaker 04

  And then a bunch of people did bad things and my Mac lit on fire at CES.

• 10:31Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 10:31Speaker 04

  So all these things have happened.

• 10:33Nilay Patel?

  Dreams are made to be broken.

• 10:34Speaker 04

  Right. But like there, some of the decisions that you're like unhappy with, like I think specifically like the touch bar. Like that is absolutely like, you're just trying to change behavior for like, just because you think you're cooler. And the keyboard is maybe in that zone, but USB C, it's like, you're doing that, but also like, there's like a good, you, you are in fact trying to do something that isn't just about like, Apple is better or better at design.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  I, I would say the exact opposite. I can, I could see the good faith with the touch bar. It's like, you know, people in a few years were like, how did I ever live without all these convenient shortcuts on my touch bar? Like this will really improve people's lives. But the keyboard, it's like, who thought that a keyboard with no tactile movement and keys that break was going to be an improvement for people's lives?

• 11:20Nilay Patel?

  So let's start with the keyboard. The very first MacBook came out, the little tiny guy, had the butterfly keyboard.

• 11:27Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 11:27Nilay Patel?

  People love that computer, actually. One USB port.

• 11:30Speaker 04

  Yep. I miss that computer so much.

• 11:32Nilay Patel?

  I bought your old one.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:34Nilay Patel?

  If you'd like to visit it sometimes, you can come over.

• 11:38Nilay Patel?

  But they were very much like, this is our vision of the future. It's small, it's light, it's got a single USB port that can do everything.

• 11:43Speaker 04

  They named it MacBook.

• 11:45Nilay Patel?

  They're like, this is the MacBook. This is the thing. It's, it's, it's an iPad that folds over, right? It can be, people loved it. Then they tried to make their pro computers that computer. So you reuse the butterfly keyboard design. They went to the port design and I think not a lot of people bought that little MacBook, right? It was a very targeted computer. So you don't have this like big data set. A lot of people bought 13 inch MacBooks, MacBook Pros. A lot of people bought 15 inch MacBook Pros. And these keyboards do not hold up. And Apple is constantly hiding behind the idea that like, it's just a small percentage.

• 12:17Speaker 04

  Yeah. The majority of our customers love this keyboard.

• 12:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 12:20Speaker 03

  I can't think of a single person.

• 12:22Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, I mean that now, right? It's become a, it's become a thing that the keyboards are bad. But like even if you're just looking at the data.

• 12:28Speaker 03

  Do you know anybody with this laptop who doesn't have a problem with the keyboard?

• 12:32Nilay Patel?

  Uh, no. Like I have a 13 inch MacBook Pro with this keyboard. It's actually Apple reviewing it.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:40Nilay Patel?

  And it's broken.

• 12:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, my dad owns one and my friend owns one and they're both broken on the keyboard. Like who are these people who aren't having this problem?

• 12:50Nilay Patel?

  So Apple has this data that says lots and lots of people are fine. Some people actually love it and a small percentage of people have broken keyboards or bad experiences. The problem is a small percentage of people at Apple's scale of everything is still millions of people.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:05Nilay Patel?

  Right? So they're always hiding behind this like statistical like game of minimizing an absolute large number inside of a relative small percentage.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  We need to finish your grand arc of history.

• 13:17Nilay Patel?

  So you can actually talk about the laptop?

• 13:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, I'm, yeah, I'll get there.

• 13:21Speaker 03

  Okay. Cause I disagree with a lot of your history, but we need to finish it so you can have your narrative.

• 13:25Nilay Patel?

  Here's what I'm saying. First there was Europe.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 13:29Nilay Patel?

  First, first the idea of the nation state was born in ancient Greece and then it went away for a while.

• 13:34Speaker 03

  A bunch of nobles were mad at the king.

• 13:36Nilay Patel?

  And then during the Holy Roman Empire, a bunch of German lords. We can do it. What I wanted to get to was they made all those decisions. They thought they could change stuff. Maybe on balance, they would have gotten there. People would have complained and you would have had the usual narrative of what I get about the headphone jack, which is why are you whining about this thing? The ship has sailed. Just shut up, right? Like you're gonna, and I, I promise you I'll whine forever, but I'm aware that the ship has long since sailed. The problem is the keyboard was faulty. And they, they didn't admit it and they did admit it. And then I really, part of the, what gets us to yesterday and them announcing a thing was they announced a new scissor switch keyboard in this thing. And they said, we've been listening to customers. We know not everybody loves it.

• 14:18Nilay Patel?

  What actually happened is that Casey Johnston at the outline, Casey used to work at Ars Tech. I know she's a great tech reporter. Now she's advice, but she wrote a piece of the outline that was like, this keyboard blows and it, it is specifically bad because a single grain of sand can destroy it. And she showed it and like she wrote several pieces about it. And then Joanna Stern at the Wall Street Journal wrote an incredible column where you could turn off the letters or make the letters repeat. And basically went through the same reporting process of like why it's broken and how it's bad.

• 14:46Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 14:46Nilay Patel?

  That set of reporting is, Paul, I think, why everybody is fearful of this keyboard. Because it went from this sort of under-reported annoyance about the thing to the conventional wisdom about the product.

• 14:59Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 14:59Nilay Patel?

  And then Apple had to launch a repair extension for the keyboard. The last time they launched products with the Butterfly keyboard, they launched them with an existing repair program.

• 15:07Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 15:08Nilay Patel?

  They announced a redesigned version of the keyboard. They wouldn't say what had been redesigned.

• 15:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's new materials. What new materials?

• 15:14Nilay Patel?

  Magic new materials. Basically, they got themselves in a point where they'd made this big bet on this keyboard. It was faulty. They refused to admit it. They got caught, and then they had to walk it back.

• 15:26Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 15:27Nilay Patel?

  And I think that moment for them, inside of everything else that's happening with the Mac, a redesigned Mac Pro that's actually properly designed, an iMac Pro for Pros. Like, they've, a Mac Mini that's actually great.

• 15:39Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 15:40Nilay Patel?

  I think Apple is like, oh shit, we have to make good computers. So that's my version of it.

• 15:44Speaker 04

  If I didn't care about accuracy, the headline that I would write, if I worked for, I don't know, another publication that doesn't care about accuracy, the headline that I would write that would just get a kajillion clicks is Johnny Ive's replacement is you. And that all of this was Johnny Ive, he checked out a few years ago, and then he finally left. And as he was checking out, a bunch of people are like, let's just make it a little thicker so he notices. Let's just, let's just, let's just fix the keyboard and see if he notices. Let's, yeah, let's just like, let's make a new Mac Pro that isn't a trash can and see if Johnny knows. You know, like, none of that is true or fair.

• 16:18Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 16:19Speaker 04

  But there is a trend. Like, they have done a bunch of stuff that we wanted. They made the iPhone a little bit thicker, so it has better battery. They made this Mac a little bit thicker. They fixed the keyboard on this thing. They made the Mac Pro what the Mac Pro should have been. They, you know, turned on the USB-C port on the iPad Pro, right? They like, made it work. Like, point for point, the things that we've been asking for, customers, us, whoever, they just have started doing it. And it's like, it's just been a trend for the past at least year or two that Apple is, like, the thing that's been annoying, Apple just like, did the obvious thing that they should have been doing in the first place.

• 16:55Nilay Patel?

  Okay, let's talk about the actual computer.

• 16:56Speaker 04

  It's great, I think. I'm still reviewing it.

• 17:00Nilay Patel?

  Same prices last year, $23.99, $27.99.

• 17:04Speaker 04

  Ninth generation processor, and don't get mad that they're not 10th, because you can't get 10th generation processors that, you know, U-series 45 watt that can actually power this thing. One of the things that they just did, they, you know, admitted, not, not admitting that they were wrong before, but they're admitting that they're wrong before, is they significantly changed the thermals so that it can run under load with 12 more watts of power than it, the previous generation could. So it's a little bit thicker, the fans push more air through, it's got a much bigger heat sink, and they also redesigned the logic board such that like, all of the heat would be better dissipated and, you know, moved around inside. And that was a big problem with the last generation, like, the just, the thing just could not dissipate heat fast enough, and so the processor would get thermally throttled.

• 17:48Speaker 04

  So that's great. The thing that they did here that, uh, nobody was asking for, but it turns out is amazing, is they made amazing speakers.

• 17:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 17:56Speaker 04

  They're incredibly good.

• 17:58Nilay Patel?

  They're really good.

• 17:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:59Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I'm, I'm very picky about them, and I think they're, I mean, they're the best laptop speakers I've ever heard. They also have this thing where like, it's a studio quality microphone and like that. It's a very nice microphone. I just, I don't think you should use it in your studio.

• 18:12Speaker 04

  No.

• 18:13Nilay Patel?

  It just, it just seems like one of those things where if you're like a recording artist, you walk in a studio and someone's like, "Sing into this MacBook!" You should leave that recording studio.

• 18:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:20Nilay Patel?

  Because it, it's not gonna work out for you.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  So is, would you say that they've gotten rid of all of their compromises? Most of their compromises? A small percentage of their compromises?

• 18:31Speaker 04

  The touch bar's still there. They did add an escape key, though.

• 18:34Nilay Patel?

  They added a hardware escape key.

• 18:35Speaker 04

  The camera is still bad.

• 18:37Nilay Patel?

  The camera's very bad. What are the real compromises of a Mac? Like, you're asking a question that has like a variety, like, if the compromise before of the Mac was, "I really like this operating system, so I, I will accept that the spacebar may not work very well."

• 18:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:52Nilay Patel?

  They have removed that compromise.

• 18:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:55Nilay Patel?

  If the compromise was, "I really like this operating system, I'm gonna, I'm forced to have this touchbar in my life, and like, use it to press escape." Okay, they've got rid of that.

• 19:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:06Nilay Patel?

  Um, they have not, I mean, the bezel's a little bit smaller. Are there Windows computers with smaller bezels? There absolutely are.

• 19:13Speaker 04

  And they have touchscreens, turns out.

• 19:15Nilay Patel?

  Right. So like, that is a compromise that they're just not gonna give up on. They don't think these computers should have touchscreens.

• 19:19Speaker 04

  The line I put in my hands on is the lack of an SD card slot when there's this much space to work with is downright spiteful.

• 19:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:26Speaker 04

  It's spiteful. It's just like, come on.

• 19:29Speaker 03

  A little mean.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:30Nilay Patel?

  Um, they're very convinced that everyone loves their USPC SD card readers. That's just what they think.

• 19:35Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:36Nilay Patel?

  And they were like, and a lot of new cameras have USPC. And it's like, I don't wanna...

• 19:40Speaker 04

  They don't, actually.

• 19:41Nilay Patel?

  And also, like, I don't, those computers shouldn't talk to each other. Just take the media out.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  I, I guess, like, so like, in comparison to the MacBook Pro 15 that you could buy a week ago, this seems like, you know, a lot of things have been fixed. But like, the computer I've had my eye on, uh, is like the, the ThinkPad, uh, Extreme. They, they have like X1 Extreme and then, then the P1. So there's...

• 20:06Speaker 04

  I mean, that's a completely different computer.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  No, it's not. It's a, it's 15 inch, it's thin and light, it has some more ports, but it's not dramatically thicker. Um, and it's not, I don't think it's even heavier, as far as I know. And a much better price. Um, and, and I'm guessing, I, I really wanna see the head to heads, but like, you know, it seems like these are the sort, well, one, ThinkPad keyboards are obviously, I, I, I would assume still best in class. But also, these are laptops that are designed to perform at a high, I don't know, like, Apple's case design is cool, but I can't imagine it is optimal for thermals. I can understand that you can improve what you're doing with thermals within the constraints of their case design.

• 20:53Speaker 03

  But I can't imagine a, a, a case that was slightly thicker and with vents wouldn't be more efficient.

• 20:59Speaker 04

  Well, there are vents. There's vents on the back, there's vents on the, the left and the right.

• 21:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they're just, they're just hidden.

• 21:04Speaker 04

  Input.

• 21:04Nilay Patel?

  Johnny has a left.

• 21:05Speaker 04

  It's metal, and so the metal dissipates heat as well. Like, I, I'm not saying this, like, there's not a more, possibly, potentially more thermally efficient design, but I don't, I don't think that this is like fundamentally broken. And it was before, and they just like, they fixed it. They made it, they made it thicker, they improved the fans.

• 21:22Nilay Patel?

  It's over and over again, the story with this thing. I mean, like, Paul, it's great, yeah, we're gonna benchmark a lot of computers, we're gonna like, figure it out. But like, if you wanna run macOS, like... This is the thing you should get, right? Like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not the thing you should get. It's the only thing you can get.

• 21:38Speaker 04

  Fair.

• 21:39Nilay Patel?

  Well, you can still buy it like a... So what's interesting in the context of this whole lineup.

• 21:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:44Nilay Patel?

  Is that there's this computer.

• 21:45Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 21:46Nilay Patel?

  Where they fixed all the problems.

• 21:47Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 21:48Nilay Patel?

  Made some improved, cool speakers. Then there's, uh, there are other laptops.

• 21:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:53Nilay Patel?

  Which continue to have butterfly keyboards. Made of special materials. That continue to have touchbars just flying at you. And this is not the best selling. It's one of the most popular.

• 22:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:06Nilay Patel?

  But their best selling models are obviously the Air and the 13 inch MacBook Pro.

• 22:10Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 22:10Nilay Patel?

  And the Air, I think is just fine. Like butterfly keyboard, haven't heard a lot about it. Keyboard extension, we'll see if they change it next year. 13 inch MacBook Pro is in a real weird spot.

• 22:21Speaker 04

  So they, you know, they gave this presentation to journalists in waves and we were, we're in one of them. And they, uh, they did, you know, uh, briefing and they talked about all the stuff and here's what it does and pros and blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, at the end of every sort of Apple keynote, they like show their lineup of products. And they're like, here's our lineup of all of our pro products. And they like, all the little products I came, you know, sliding in. And, um, Mac Pro slid in, the Pro Display slid in, the iMac Pro slid in, the 15 inch Mac, or 16 inch MacBook Pro slid in. Yep.

• 22:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 22:54Speaker 04

  They just like, the 13 inch MacBook Pro was just not on their slide of pro products.

• 22:58Nilay Patel?

  I think the, that generation MacBook Pros is gonna get fully memory hold.

• 23:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:02Nilay Patel?

  So they already, they released the 15 inch old butterfly MacBook Pro in like May and it's just gone. This thing just replaced it.

• 23:08Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:09Nilay Patel?

  I think the 13 inch will get rev'd soon and it'll be gone. And Apple will pretend that butterfly keyboards never happened.

• 23:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:15Nilay Patel?

  They're like, we'll listen to our customers. And it's like, three years of you saying the keyboards didn't break. Well, the keyboards broke.

• 23:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:22Nilay Patel?

  I think they did as good of a job talking about the new keyboard.

• 23:26Speaker 04

  As could be done.

• 23:26Nilay Patel?

  As could be done. Without just like, just flat out admitting they were wrong.

• 23:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. Like unless they're gonna, unless they're gonna recall every single Mac on the, on the planet. Like they did, they did as good as they could.

• 23:36Speaker 03

  And so you guys have been typing on this new keyboard?

• 23:38Speaker 04

  It's great. You wanna, you wanna hear it? Here we go.

• 23:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, let's, let's do a little bit of ASMR.

• 23:44Nilay Patel?

  All right, here we go. Let's, uh, let's listen to this keyboard.

• 23:50Nilay Patel?

  It's fine. I'm coming from an old 15 inch MacBook Pro 2015, which is honestly the computer that they want you to compare it to.

• 23:58Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 23:59Nilay Patel?

  And it's, I like that keyboard a lot.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  This keyboard is better than that keyboard.

• 24:03Nilay Patel?

  It's, it is, it is, uh, it's a little gushier.

• 24:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, but it's, it's less springy. It's more clunky, less springy.

• 24:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 24:13Speaker 04

  That MacBook keyboard compared to this, like the, the backlight bleeds out the sides of the keys, the key, the metaphor I use is it's the, it's the balloon arm waving guy at the car dealership. That's, they're like just like, they're just loose and springy, blah.

• 24:26Nilay Patel?

  You know why, you know why the balloon guy exists? Cause it's effective.

• 24:31Speaker 04

  People love balloon guy.

• 24:33Nilay Patel?

  People see the balloon guy, they're like, I'm gonna buy a car today.

• 24:37Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying, I understand your metaphor, but balloon guy's beloved.

• 24:41Speaker 03

  So Neil, you're saying that this is not blowing you away compared to, or, or even possibly an improvement compared to what the 2015?

• 24:49Nilay Patel?

  I think if, if they had told me the same computer with this keyboard, I'd be like, oh, the keyboards are fine. Yeah. The, the things that are getting me are the touch bar is just ridiculous. It is a ridic, like, just think of the, the interaction modality of a keyboard is that you are pushing buttons, right? So often you can do nothing by just resting your hands in this, in this zone. The touch bar is full of touch buttons. So if you, if you are wrong by a millimeter, you have pressed the back button in your web browser by accident. And so like, now I've installed Pock, which is an app that, that I know Dieter's had, that like hijacks the touch bar with other stuff. And I've just like have my wifi status where my finger goes, cause it's not a button.

• 25:32Nilay Patel?

  Why, I don't need to know about my wifi status at that point in time.

• 25:35Speaker 03

  I'm not saying you're wrong, but there's the home row, right?

• 25:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  That's one place where people rest. But let's say you want to stretch out, there's a row above that, and then there's the numbers. So you're going full extension.

• 25:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  You have your hands flat on your laptop.

• 25:49Speaker 04

  You just like rest your hand on the screen? Are you just like, just like chilling, just resting your arm?

• 25:53Nilay Patel?

  Where do you, where do you like?

• 25:55Speaker 04

  On the palm rest.

• 25:56Speaker 03

  On the home row.

• 25:57Speaker 04

  On the home row.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  No, there's little, there's little braille, not braille.

• 26:01Nilay Patel?

  I'm not like always in like a, like a pounce position, ready to type.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  F and J.

• 26:06Nilay Patel?

  I'm like scrolling around, I got my hand on the... Whatever. All I'm saying is, it is ridiculous to put a tap modality next to a button push modality, which is what the touchbar is. And I just don't... I would have loved to save $200 and not have a touchbar. And not have a GPU. And like, have this keyboard. And I don't think I will ever get that thing.

• 26:28Speaker 04

  I mean, buy a Surface Laptop 3. That's what you want.

• 26:30Nilay Patel?

  I want a Hackintosh.

• 26:31Speaker 04

  You want a Surface Laptop 3. 15" Surface Laptop 3. That's what you want. It is, it's got a regular old keyboard. The touchpad isn't like giant like this one, but whatever, but the GPU is underpowered, battery lasts a long time, doesn't have anything you don't want. That's what you want.

• 26:47Nilay Patel?

  Okay. I'll buy one of those soon.

• 26:48Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 26:49Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, Dieter's gonna review the computer. I just think this moment where Apple is just doing obvious things is a very interesting moment in their history. Because what they are decidedly not doing is innovating a lot.

• 27:03Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 27:04Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like, they're not pushing forward, like, the products. They're just resetting the products to a place where like, everyone's happy with them.

• 27:12Speaker 04

  Would you like to talk about the rumor that they gave a presentation to 1,000 employees and revealed their entire AR plan for the next 3 years?

• 27:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:23Speaker 04

  To the 1,000 employees? It's wild.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was just gonna say, like, if they come out with wild AR stuff in a couple of years, we'll be like, gee, I guess that makes sense, you know? Right? If it's good, if they do a good job and they change the whole world with AR, then like, it makes sense to just sit around and tweak their phones and computers, right?

• 27:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, I am very concerned about the idea that Apple thinks that AR glasses will replace the iPhone in 10 years, which is one of the rumors that came out of that meeting. Like, I would say as a society, we have not dealt well with pervasive cameras everywhere. Right? Just a lot of problems with everybody having a camera. Or 5, all the time. Like, just a lot. Like, and a lot of good things, sure, like, I love cameras. We review the hell out of cameras when the phones come out. Great. But like, there are surveillance issues. There are just creepy people issues. There are revenge porn... Like, it's just there. There's a lot of stuff that comes with that level of camera technology. Now we're gonna put them on everybody's faces?

• 28:26Nilay Patel?

  Like, that, it seems like we ought to think that one through a little bit before Apple just gets to race out and like, make a product of that scale. And then on top, and all, like... What is AR? It's a layer of information over the world. I would say as a society, we have not done a great job of agreeing on information at this point in time, like what is true and what is not. So like now you might have people like literally living in different perceived realities. But that is already true because of phones. People live in different perceived realities. But it would be really cool. It would be awesome. I'm just saying, I don't want to see face camera filter bubble. Like, can you imagine how many like issues the interface Casey will have to write every day? When there are face camera filter bubbles?

• 29:11Nilay Patel?

  Can't wait. It's just, that's where my head's at with that stuff. I think it's really cool. I just think deploying it at Apple's scale. I hope they're thoughtful about it. All right, let's take a break. We gotta talk about folding phones. We didn't talk about the Mac Pro at all. Should we talk about it for a second?

• 29:24Speaker 04

  The Mac Pro's coming in December. We, that, that, that's what we know. You can get an eight terabyte SSD setup on it if you want.

• 29:31Nilay Patel?

  It does not fold in half.

• 29:32Speaker 04

  It does not fold.

• 29:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's got to.

• 29:34Speaker 04

  You can rack mount it though.

• 29:35Nilay Patel?

  It's got USB ports. It's got one on the inside for your, your copyright dongle needs. It's perfect. All right, we'll be right back.

• 29:46Speaker 05

  Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal from your local Toyota dealer. Make a smart buy on an all-wheel drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or get a Corolla sedan packed with the latest features, advanced tech and head turning style. Or take a test drive in two of Toyota's most popular SUVs. The spacious, family-friendly Grand Highlander and adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid and plug-in hybrid models available across the lineup, plus efficient all-electrics like the BZ, BZ Woodland and all-wheel drive CHR, you can drive your way and skip the pump. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering. With legendary resale value, built on a reputation for quality and reliability.

• 30:30Speaker 05

  So when it's time for your next Toyota, you could trade in for more. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 30:54Speaker 06

  Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars.

• 31:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app.

• 31:09Speaker 06

  Fine. No one deals more deals than... Please stop. Touche. Priceline.

• 31:17Nilay Patel?

  All right, Lita, do you want to talk about the razor right away? Or do you want me to get you all riled up about RCS first?

• 31:23Speaker 04

  Oh, my God, we don't have time to talk about RCS.

• 31:27Nilay Patel?

  Okay, look.

• 31:28Speaker 04

  The Vergecast. Google is flipping the switch so that all Android users in the US who use Android Messages, which is not most of them, because most people have Samsung phones, but you can go download it. If you use Android Messages, you will get RCS chat. Google will provide it to you by the end of the year.

• 31:45Speaker 04

  They're rolling it out slowly, you know? They're just doing the thing. This is, I feel like there's a game of like cat and mouse between the carriers and Google over RCS at this point. Like, Google's like, we're gonna launch in the UK and France, and we're just gonna like, we're gonna take over and not wait for carriers. And then the carrier's like, interesting, we're gonna launch a joint venture where we're gonna create our own app to handle RCS. And Google's like, huh, we're just gonna provide it, provide it right now because we can, because you're gonna take another year to get your shit done. The carriers are like, I see what you've done there, Google. And I don't know what their next move is, but they're good, there's gonna be another turn here.

• 32:21Speaker 04

  Presumably, so like, Google's provide, Google provided RCS, will switch over to carrier provided RCS seamlessly and without a problem. Once carrier provided RCS becomes available. But what we don't know yet is whether or not you'll get to continue to use the Android Messages app, or if you got to use the carrier provided app when they want to provide RCS to you.

• 32:37Speaker 03

  I use Signal, which can handle my SMS and also Signal messaging.

• 32:42Speaker 04

  So what'll happen there is you'll, you'll continue to use SMS, because Signal cannot, the RCS has to be like, from an authenticated app, and Signal can authenticate to an RCS server.

• 32:55Speaker 03

  And that's forever gonna be like that?

• 32:57Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, we'll see. Maybe someday Signal will like be blessed up to like become an RCS provider if it wants to because it is a federated model. But that's like a five-year project.

• 33:08Speaker 03

  Because I just pulled up the Messages app and it says you can't, Messages can only send and receive messages if it's your default.

• 33:14Speaker 04

  That's correct. Yep.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  So nobody's getting RCS.

• 33:17Speaker 04

  Well, no, most people use the default and the default of Android Messages on like a whole but like two years ago, LG and HTC and a bunch of other Android makers like, yep, we're just using Android Messages now. And the only one that wasn't was Samsung. If you have a Samsung phone, you need to go download Android Messages and not use Samsung's client. I could go on. We shouldn't have feelings.

• 33:38Nilay Patel?

  I know you do. So let me ask you about them.

• 33:39Speaker 04

  Oh, God.

• 33:41Nilay Patel?

  This is a war. This is a tiny little Cold War for messaging, to control messaging. What are the chances that the CCMI, Cross-Carrier Messaging Initiative?

• 33:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:53Nilay Patel?

  Great name. When I think about consumer marketing, I think about the words Cross-Carrier Messaging Initiative. What are the chances of the CCMI roll like fragments RCS?

• 34:03Speaker 04

  Hopefully, small. Everyone is saying the right words about interoperability and interconnect. Interconnect is a thing that still exists with RCS. It's just a little bit simpler than it was with SMS. So you shouldn't need, you know, weird third parties like Syniverse to like translate your messages and then hold your Valentine's Day messages. Because the servers do talk to each other pretty directly right now, like email or whatever. But the, those interconnects involve contracts and that if anytime there's a contract, it's a point of leverage. And so they could choose to like break it. The reason RCS didn't take off is the carriers didn't want to like take the time to put in the effort to like make the contracts and all work together. There's too much work.

• 34:49Speaker 04

  They feel like they have to now. I think Google's putting a lot of pressure on everybody. But, you know, it could all go wrong. There's no guarantee that it will go right.

• 34:58Nilay Patel?

  And is that here, or is it just because iMessage exists? Great. Those people are not accessible. Even if they build RCS, there's no guarantee Apple's gonna use it. Although, Apple's made some noises in the past, right?

• 35:10Speaker 04

  No. Apple has said zero things about RCS.

• 35:13Nilay Patel?

  I think Google has made some noises about Apple.

• 35:15Speaker 04

  Google has said that they would love it if Apple participated. They'll accept everybody into their happy RCS family.

• 35:22Nilay Patel?

  And then silence emanated from Apple's circular headquarters.

• 35:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, I would call it gleeful silence.

• 35:28Nilay Patel?

  But once upon a time, carriers used to make a lot of money in SMS.

• 35:31Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 35:31Nilay Patel?

  All that traffic moved to iMessage and WhatsApp in line and WeChat.

• 35:34Speaker 04

  Yep, because they got hubris. They charged too much rent for SMS, anyway.

• 35:42Nilay Patel?

  The only reason they're building now is because they make that money again.

• 35:44Speaker 04

  But they think they're gonna make their money on the backend, because the thing that they want to make money on is charging Virgin Airlines and Walgreens and, you know, your hotel and your bank to chat with you over RCS.

• 35:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 35:59Speaker 04

  Instead of charging you for the RCS messages. That's the plan.

• 36:02Speaker 03

  That sounds like a idea that would have worked five years ago and is not gonna work this time.

• 36:09Speaker 04

  Uh, maybe. The thing that RCS has going for it is it is tied to your phone number and it is, once everyone does it, a universal fallback. Everyone will have RCS except for iPhone users. So they know that they can always get, like, you don't have to find out. If I want to talk to you, I don't have to ask you what chat app you use. I can just use RCS.

• 36:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. But to Paul's point, like, Apple already offers iMessage Business Chat.

• 36:37Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 36:37Nilay Patel?

  Facebook is combining all of its chat services.

• 36:40Speaker 03

  Yep. And the phone number is the thing that we need to kill.

• 36:44Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, but guess who doesn't want it killed? The people that control whether or not you can, like, get data on your phone.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  Well, sure. That's what I'm saying. I feel like this is a legacy offering.

• 36:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, the only way to stop it, Paul, is to, like, launch a pirate mesh network across the entire planet where we control the data.

• 37:01Speaker 03

  Well, if the FCC would just let me free the airwaves.

• 37:06Nilay Patel?

  I know.

• 37:08Speaker 03

  Stop granting monopolies. We need competition.

• 37:11Speaker 04

  It was literally about to explode.

• 37:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, that'd be like, one thing you could do is like, you could maybe block T-Mobile and Sprint from merging and then make Sprint.

• 37:22Nilay Patel?

  Yep.

• 37:24Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 37:24Nilay Patel?

  Yep. Give the spectrum back to the people. Thank you.

• 37:27Speaker 04

  The spectrum.

• 37:28Nilay Patel?

  Paul Miller for president.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  The spectrum already belongs to the people. It's doled out by the people's government. Anyway, uh, the end.

• 37:34Nilay Patel?

  The end.

• 37:34Speaker 04

  The people's government. That's where I'm at right now. First, there was Europe.

• 37:39Speaker 04

  Uh, dear, sweet democracy. Let's just put our face computers on.

• 37:46Nilay Patel?

  All right. Speaking of carriers and throwbacks.

• 37:48Speaker 04

  Oh, God.

• 37:49Nilay Patel?

  The Razr's here.

• 37:50Speaker 04

  The Razr is here, locked to Verizon, using an eSIM. So you can't just unlock it and throw it on whatever carrier you want.

• 37:57Nilay Patel?

  A carrier-exclusive Razr is a truly, like, truly a throwback.

• 38:00Speaker 04

  It's like a proper throwback.

• 38:02Nilay Patel?

  All right, let's not talk about eSIMs and carrier lockdowns. Let's talk about how cool this screen is.

• 38:06Speaker 04

  It seems great. There does not appear to be a crease that you can feel or see. Uh, Motorola is, uh, very confident that you don't need to baby this thing. You know, it's not IP68 or whatever, but like, they're, they're like, we're not doing like a big scary, you know, set of warnings. Use it like a phone. It'll last a couple of years for sure, because that's how long phones usually last. And, um, yeah, they're, they're like, we, we, we've made these screens before. We're fine. Go ahead and use it. Also, it costs 1,500 bucks, so that'll limit the number of people who buy it.

• 38:41Nilay Patel?

  And those people are like, like, I broke my Razr by driving it over with my Mercedes. They'll be fine.

• 38:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:46Nilay Patel?

  Um, I, we, we had Panas Panay on the Vergecast a while ago. He was talking about Microsoft's dual-screen devices. And I asked him very directly, like, this seems like a moment where there's a form factor change, which is usually sort of historically when incumbents fail.

• 39:04Speaker 04

  Right.

• 39:04Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like, new entrants can come in because there's a form factor change and you get there first. So obviously, the form factor change to mobile provided a huge opportunity for Apple.

• 39:13Speaker 04

  Right.

• 39:13Nilay Patel?

  Um, do you think? And he was like, nah, I don't think about it that way. But I'm looking at dual-screen devices from Microsoft. I'm looking at the Galaxy Fold. I'm looking at this Razr and I'm like, the thing people really want is something that looks different, like ultimately, that provides a new kind of functionality. And I see the razor, I'm like, everybody is interested in it.

• 39:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:32Nilay Patel?

  It's the first time you see a non-Apple or Samsung phone just like hit the mainstream.

• 39:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:37Nilay Patel?

  It was on the front page of like CNN today.

• 39:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, but like Motorola has been making nothing burger mid-range Android phones for four years now.

• 39:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 39:46Speaker 04

  And they've just been like holding this one, just like, we're just gonna keep making, you know, G whatevers. And they'll just go out there, it'll be fine, but really what we're working on is this thing.

• 39:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 39:56Speaker 04

  And, you know, I don't know if they nailed it, there's a bunch of potential problems with it. But it seems like they, the thing that I wrote is, they chose an easier problem to solve than Samsung did. Samsung tried to go all the way to like unfolding tablet. And they just had a huge crease that they had to deal with and they just, they, they got over their skis. Motorola just like nailed a slightly easier problem, I hope.

• 40:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, well, I mean, Samsung had made a Galaxy S10 that just folded in half.

• 40:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:23Nilay Patel?

  You think, you think they would have been easier than the Galaxy Fold?

• 40:25Speaker 04

  I do, I think so.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Why is that, other than, obviously Motorola has a different hinge design, which is gonna be hard to talk about on audio. Uh, but you should definitely watch Heim's video, um, and read the article and you can see the patent and everything of how Motorola is folding the screen without really creasing it's like.

• 40:42Nilay Patel?

  It, it forms a teardrop inside the hinge so that it can fold completely flat.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  Like if you imagine folding a piece of paper without creasing it, just it put two ends of a piece of paper together.

• 40:52Nilay Patel?

  Yep.

• 40:53Speaker 03

  And now you have, so that's awesome, so is that what you mean by the easier problem?

• 40:57Speaker 04

  No, I mean that the, the, the length of screen that they have to fold in half is like an inch and a half instead of five inches or four inches or however tall the Galaxy Fold screen is.

• 41:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 41:09Speaker 04

  There's just less like stuff that they have to worry about, they can just, they could just fold it that way. It goes inside the, the phone and they can, they can worry a little bit less about like all the shifting and weirdness that happens with like the larger screen.

• 41:22Nilay Patel?

  And they have a much smaller number of software problems to solve.

• 41:26Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 41:26Nilay Patel?

  Because all it is is an Android phone.

• 41:28Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:29Nilay Patel?

  Right, instead of an Android phone that, that unfolds into a tablet. So like the Galaxy Fold is like a tiny, front-facing Android phone. And then like a tablet. And then it's an Android tablet.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  Although Motorola is doing some kind of nice stuff. It looks like, I mean, I haven't used it, but the, the little external screen.

• 41:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 41:49Speaker 03

  You can quick reply to messages, dismiss notifications and stuff like that. It's just, it's, it's not just, I, it does absolutely look cool. And I think that's a really great reason to be interested in it. But it also seems, it just, it kind of makes a little more sense as a phone because it has like a check the notifications mode. It's less tall in your pocket, which is one of the big problems I have with, with phones being so big is I just don't like, there's uncomfortable in my pocket.

• 42:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 42:22Speaker 03

  It's, it is a little ridiculously tall when it's open. So it might be weird to use. But I don't know. It's cool.

• 42:30Nilay Patel?

  I think people are going to be hype over this thing. I think people are like, this is going to prove out the use case for folding phones so much more than the Axifold.

• 42:37Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 42:38Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like make the, make the thing that everyone's like, there are two things. Everyone thinks the phones are too big, but then everybody wants a big phone. Right? And like, we are told over and over again, there's not a market for a small phone.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 42:49Nilay Patel?

  Okay. Well, here's a small phone that turns into a big phone. Like, hmm.

• 42:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:53Nilay Patel?

  Like, I think people like.

• 42:54Speaker 03

  Like this will fit, this will fit in a pocket. And the, it's a little bit thicker, probably. The, and the possible problem is they made it really thin, which means it has a very small battery and a pretty slow processor. And that combination of things could mean that the battery life isn't great or that it feels slow. I'm not super worried about it feeling slow. I am worried about battery life and I'm definitely worried about the camera being womp womp.

• 43:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. The camera will be bad.

• 43:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:17Nilay Patel?

  But this is great. It's a throwback. This is, you can do digital wellbeing in software or you can just buy a phone with a shit box camera and a slow processor.

• 43:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:25Nilay Patel?

  And then carry around your RX 100 and now you've got like $4,000 of gadgets.

• 43:29Speaker 03

  And because it's a Verizon special, you have to use Verizon Messages Plus, which means you don't want to text anybody anyway.

• 43:35Nilay Patel?

  Do you want to talk about the eSIM thing for two seconds?

• 43:37Speaker 04

  I mean, eSIM was designed to force carriers to allow people to switch phones more easily because they could just like do it in software instead of having to go buy a little card, right? A little plastic thing. But instead, what appears to be happening is if there's no place at all to put that little card, then it's completely up to the carrier or the manufacturer of whether or not they'll let you do that software. The software piece isn't there yet. We haven't regulated it into existence. And so I don't know if this is going to be unlocked. They don't want to talk about it. But it is completely possible that if they don't have to release this thing unlocked, they just won't do the work of making the software to let you use it on another carrier.

• 44:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that sounds horrible.

• 44:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:15Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I will say that part of the Sprint T-Mobile merger condition is that like T-Mobile has to like provision eSIM things so anybody can jump on their network and like jump off their network.

• 44:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:23Nilay Patel?

  But at the same time, like Verizon's like, what if we use this to put you in jail?

• 44:27Speaker 03

  That is also a great throwback because wasn't the original Razr Verizon exclusive for like a while?

• 44:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, the original Razr was super expensive. It was Verizon exclusive. It was a status symbol. And then it commoditized inside of like two years to being like the phone that like Bell South would throw at you for free if you just drove past one of their stores.

• 44:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:45Nilay Patel?

  Like random Bell South dudes outside.

• 44:49Nilay Patel?

  All right, let's take a break. We'll come back. Julia Alexander is going to join us and talk about Disney Plus. The streaming wars have been joined.

• 44:59Speaker 05

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal from your local Toyota dealer. Make a smart buy on an all-wheel-drive Camry, Corolla Cross, or get a Corolla sedan packed with the latest features, advanced tech, and head-turning style. Or take a test drive in two of Toyota's most popular SUVs, the spacious, family-friendly Grand Highlander and adventure-ready RAV4. And with so many hybrid and plug-in hybrid models available across the lineup, plus efficient all-electrics like the BZ, BZ Woodland, and all-wheel-drive CHR, you can drive your way and skip the pump. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering. With legendary resale value, built on a reputation for quality and reliability,

• 45:43Speaker 05

  so when it's time for your next Toyota, you could trade in for more. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 46:01Speaker 07

  What if we told you there was one thing you could eat to reduce your risk of death by about a quarter?

• 46:07Speaker 08

  Interested?

• 46:08Speaker 07

  And what if we added that this magical substance can dramatically lower your cholesterol, improve your mood, and keep your weight stable?

• 46:15Speaker 08

  No, it's not protein. It's actually fiber, the least sexy, most overlooked nutrient of all.

• 46:22Speaker 07

  But what is fiber? How could one nutrient do all those amazing things? And how can you get enough? Is a powder you stir into some water gonna do it for you?

• 46:30Speaker 08

  All that plus the strange tale of the gorilla poop obsessed father of cornflakes in the latest episode of Gastropod. Find Gastropod and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

• 46:44Nilay Patel?

  Paul Miller.

• 46:45Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 46:45Nilay Patel?

  Every week you hold this nation together.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 46:47Nilay Patel?

  With pure consistency of a segment called?

• 46:50Speaker 03

  I'm taking my talents to artificial general intelligence.

• 46:54Nilay Patel?

  Wow. That's like two different references all in one.

• 46:57Speaker 03

  This, this is a sports reference to the time LeBron James changed basketball teams. But this is John Carmack, who is my favorite programmer, is basically quitting Oculus. He's, he's gonna be an advisor, but you know, the famed creator of Doom and Quake and just very, very good programmer, very smart person.

• 47:25Speaker 03

  I just, the LeBron thing was the thing that came to mind. And there's a really great discussion on Hacker News about this. But you know, this idea, John Carmack says he's going, while he's not too old, he wants to try artificial general intelligence. He wants to give it a shot. And so he and his son are going to hang out at their house and work on this problem. And it's just like, if any, I can't think of, there's probably maybe five programmers in the world who could say that and anybody would care.

• 48:00Speaker 03

  Well, he is one of the five and it's I care and it's really exciting. And it's fun, you know, and it's a great debate because what does that even mean? Is this a problem that has lacked people like John Carmack? Or does it have too much hype? You know, there's so much, you know, like, is the stuff Google's doing with DeepMind? Along those lines or is it totally different from what real AGI would be? It's so much fun to think about and just theorize about John Carmack and his son hanging out, solving the hardest problem on the planet.

• 48:32Nilay Patel?

  Wait, can I ask? Okay. So first of all, it seems like Oculus hit a big inflection point, right? They completed phase one, the quest is out.

• 48:40Speaker 03

  And they also killed the thing that John Carmack spent the most of his time on, which was Gear VR.

• 48:46Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so a big inflection point, like they went from Palmer Lucky in our CES trailer with like basically a cardboard box with a phone in it. But it was like the first thing to Carmack was like, I'll help you. Sold to Facebook, refined, iterated the product. Now all the OGs are gone. Facebook is like big company on its cycle, right?

• 49:06Speaker 03

  And I believe steering Oculus towards AR. That's the impression I've gotten for the past couple of years.

• 49:13Nilay Patel?

  Okay, but like, so he's out there and then he's, he's gonna do AGI. So here's some dumb questions about AGI that I'm just gonna ask you. If he invented a computer that was as smart as a gerbil, would he have been successful? I just, I just picked an animal.

• 49:29Speaker 03

  That's one of the great things about this hacker news discussion. One of the first problems of AGI is defining intelligence.

• 49:34Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so we can stop there. First, there was Europe. But like, so that's, but that's like the scope of the problem is like, it doesn't even have a defined problem set or a defined like solution space.

• 49:47Speaker 03

  And that's something people are talking a lot about, like when John Carmack was working on 3D rendering stuff. We have a pretty good description of the physics of light. And when you're making a 3D renderer, you are trying to make something that looks like that without, you know, actually simulating trillions of trillions and trillions to the power of trillions of interactions of particles all the time. You know, you're, you're creating a loose approximation of a thing that we understand the physics of. We don't understand brains. We don't understand intelligence. We do know a lot about them. And so the hope is to use the things that we know about. And the things that we do know about computers and try to marry those into intelligence.

• 50:32Speaker 03

  And I think probably the foremost example lately is the stuff DeepMind's done with AlphaGo. And they just did AlphaStarCraft, like the, you know, they're using neural network stuff and deep learning to solve, to play games right now. I think that's the closest, I think, that anybody has public, research-wise. But it's a very broad problem.

• 50:55Nilay Patel?

  Just like 1 out of 10, how likely is it that John Carmack and his son actually make a Terminator?

• 51:01Speaker 03

  You don't want to really get into this with me because I really don't even think AGI is possible. I'm a naysayer in that sense. But if it is possible with our given technology, or just like some more leaps, I would say John Carmack and his son have one of the better shots. Because I think he's a really smart person.

• 51:20Nilay Patel?

  I feel like we should check on him and his son in that house. All right. Speaking of Death Stars.

• 51:27Speaker 09

  Wow.

• 51:28Nilay Patel?

  You did it. Julia, welcome.

• 51:30Speaker 09

  Oh, my gosh.

• 51:32Nilay Patel?

  It's here. It's happened. Disney Plus.

• 51:35Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 51:36Nilay Patel?

  It launched.

• 51:37Speaker 09

  Yes, very well for them. They hit 10 million subscribers first day.

• 51:39Speaker 04

  Well, it launched, it launched very well eventually.

• 51:42Speaker 09

  Yeah, so they made, they had a lot of people sign up. Whether or not those people could watch anything is the question, but they signed up for it.

• 51:51Nilay Patel?

  They signed up for it. Obviously, there's a huge marketing push. My favorite moment of this, like, they are, they are a huge company.

• 51:59Speaker 09

  Massive.

• 52:00Nilay Patel?

  Like, they're, they are the Death Star.

• 52:02Speaker 09

  And they keep buying a lot of other big companies.

• 52:03Nilay Patel?

  They can't stop themselves. They don't know what else to do with all their money. They're like, ah, crap, 5 million more people watch Endgame today. Like, what do we do with this? But like ESPN anchors are like, Disney Plus will change your life.

• 52:15Speaker 09

  Right.

• 52:16Nilay Patel?

  Like, that is corporate synergy.

• 52:19Speaker 09

  At a like-

• 52:19Nilay Patel?

  At a level that is just-

• 52:21Speaker 09

  It's a disturbing level. Yeah.

• 52:23Nilay Patel?

  But like, you know.

• 52:24Speaker 09

  But also understandable from like a business perspective. Like, I get it.

• 52:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's just, but so they did a lot of hype. A huge corporate synergy launch moment. I don't know if that 10 million number actually means they have 10 million subscribers, right? They gave, they gave it away for free to Verizon customers. It's in bundles. It is ridiculously easy to push one button and subscribe for a minute-

• 52:44Speaker 09

  Right.

• 52:45Nilay Patel?

  On like an Apple TV.

• 52:46Speaker 09

  Right, I mean, the big question is whether or not those 10 million subscribers will stay around after the seven day free trial, after they finish watching Mandalorian, after they finish watching Iron Man 2.

• 52:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:56Speaker 09

  Which I plug every time on this podcast.

• 52:58Nilay Patel?

  Come on.

• 53:01Speaker 09

  Yeah, I mean, whether or not those people actually stay around is the question. But, I mean, analysts were expecting Disney Plus to hit between 10 and 18 million by end of year one. So they hit it by end of day one.

• 53:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 53:12Speaker 09

  Which is a nice little moment for them. Like, they get to pat themselves on the back and be like, "See, we knew what we were doing." Whether or not that's true will take a few months.

• 53:21Speaker 04

  Do you know, do you know how, how they, how they tell how many subscribers they have? They have a Bob Iger counter.

• 53:27Nilay Patel?

  Dieter, it's been a good run for you, but I think you are the first casualty.

• 53:33Nilay Patel?

  I'm so sorry to everyone. This is a family show. I'm not sure how that got through. Do you have that queued up? No, it just came to me.

• 53:40Speaker 03

  Can I get a real quick question answered? Speaking of Verizon wondering if it's in the war. I, um, I didn't even know, but I just like read in the Verge.com. It's like Verizon customers get Disney Plus for free. And I was definitely not planning on giving Disney any of my money to watch old movies that I've seen before. But if I get it for free, I get it for free. And so I signed up and then I watched Miracle last night. It was great about hockey, because I love-

• 54:07Nilay Patel?

  The second time you've mentioned that you watched Miracle last night.

• 54:09Speaker 09

  It's a great movie.

• 54:10Speaker 03

  What does Verizon get out of that?

• 54:11Nilay Patel?

  So Verizon's like out of the zone, right? Like, they don't have a big content play of their own. They're obviously just gonna bundle everybody else's. Yeah, because they tried. They, they went 90. Oh, and how. But like, so if you're AT&T, just like, they're the, they're the two big carriers, right? AT&T is gonna do HBO Max or something. They're gonna let you stream CNN for free. Like, if you're an AT&T customer- You will get as much 480p video from their services as you can drink. Like, all day long, 480p video, just doesn't hit your data cap, you can have it. Verizon doesn't have that to offer anybody, so they got a partner.

• 54:47Speaker 09

  And Disney doesn't have a wireless carrier, they have to partner.

• 54:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, buckle up, because what's merging next?

• 54:51Speaker 04

  Oh my god.

• 54:53Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, so they launched the thing. Disney, and you talked about this last time, Disney famously had bought BamTech, which was like, the best streaming provider.

• 55:01Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 55:01Nilay Patel?

  Maybe, maybe wasn't, because of what happened yesterday.

• 55:04Speaker 09

  I'm, so there's two things, right? A lot of people signing up at once, launch day issues. I mean, the issue that Disney Plus saw is the same issue that every single game company sees when they launch a big game. And then they're like, "Our servers are down." And everyone gets mad, and it's like, "We've been doing this for two years," I feel like. Every time anything launches, like, "Will the Warcraft Classic launch?" And people are like, "I can't get in." And I was like, "I feel like this is the same polygon story every month." It's like, they can't get into their thing. And so with Disney Plus, there was override. We asked Michael Pollak, who's the head of Disney Streaming Services, if he was worried about day one. He said, "We're prepared," in August, and they were not.

• 55:40Speaker 09

  And so, but it wasn't surprising to me. It seems like things are mostly better now, like, day two, people are getting in. I think there's also less people trying to access

• 55:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 55:49Speaker 09

  streaming service, they've watched The Mandalorian. So there's that happening too. But, I mean, it wasn't super surprising. And BamTech, for me, I was like, also convinced that it wasn't going to hold up, because I look at ESPN Plus stuff. And ESPN Plus stuff always has issues.

• 56:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:03Speaker 09

  And I was like, "This is the same..."

• 56:04Nilay Patel?

  Didn't BamTech also run HBO Now for a minute?

• 56:06Speaker 09

  Yeah, and then Disney bought it, and they were like, "Ha, ha, move."

• 56:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. But HBO Now, like, very famously, every time Game of Thrones came out, like, had a problem.

• 56:15Speaker 09

  I had to watch it on-

• 56:15Speaker 04

  No, but so HBO Go was, was hot garbage, and then HBO Now launched on BamTech. It's a different technology, and then HBO Now was the good one, and Go was the bad one. So if you had HBO on cable, you had the crappy streaming service. And if you didn't, you had the good one.

• 56:29Speaker 09

  Now was also, though, not super great. I had to watch Game of Thrones on, like, Twitch a lot of the time, I don't know if I can say that. But I had to watch it on, like, Twitch, because it was just like, that's, it's running better here than it is on HBO Now.

• 56:40Nilay Patel?

  So, I mean, this is like, another question, right? We are now at the point where you could be paying $4.99 a month for Apple, you could be paying whatever price for... It's in so many bundles, it's like, hard to know how much people are gonna pay.

• 56:54Speaker 09

  $6.99 standalone.

• 56:55Nilay Patel?

  Standalone, $6.99 for Disney Plus. Like, are we, like, the question marks about everything, you have to buy everything, or like, recreate the cable bundle. Do you see any ways that, or is Disney and Netflix, it's like Disney Plus and Netflix are the ones everyone's gonna have?

• 57:09Speaker 09

  So, there's an interesting conversation that came up yesterday because the number one trending thing on Disney Plus last night was The Simpsons. And people were like, why is The Simpsons the number one trending thing? And then it was like, wanna, and I was like, well, because Disney needed an office, and its office that it owns, because they don't want to have any licensed content, so its office is The Simpsons. They brought that in, they were like, what are people gonna fall asleep to? What are people just gonna put on when they're done watching Miracle? Uh, it's gonna be, it's gonna be The Simpsons. And so, and so, we saw that happen, like, it was the number one trending thing, people were confused about it, they were like, why is this on Hulu? So, the question is like whether everyone's gonna have to have a service that they're gonna buy all of this for. I don't think that's true, I think Netflix will be that for a lot of people still.

• 57:53Speaker 09

  I think Netflix has the most at this point, that, I mean, genuinely has the most. They announce a new thing every single day, and they have more content coming in, and you can just put something on. Like, I should be watching more Disney Plus than I am, but I can't stop watching Criminal Minds, which is a bad show.

• 58:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 58:09Speaker 09

  But here I am, like, every night.

• 58:11Nilay Patel?

  This is like a big question for Netflix, like, many of their originals are of, like, B minus quality.

• 58:19Speaker 09

  Yeah, they're not great.

• 58:21Nilay Patel?

  Right, and like, everyone kinda knows it, everyone's kinda saying it.

• 58:23Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 58:24Nilay Patel?

  Hyperdrive is A+, I just wanna put that out there. You talk about Iron Man 2 every time, hyperdrive. The shoot at the Kodak factory upstate, is that gonna put pressure on Netflix in this? Or is it the library content that licensed content?

• 58:35Speaker 09

  I mean, the next year, so the licensing stuff, it's funny, if you go on Disney Plus today, you can click on a title, and it's like, oh, this is coming in October 2021. And it's like, oh, I guess I'll stick around. Just wait, but the reason for that is because even though like Disney owns a lot of their, owns, they own all this stuff, they actually licensed out all their IP, um, and so they're trying to slowly get it back. Netflix has a few years before they have to really start worrying about losing everything. Like, they're losing some things, but like, the CW deal for them is still, like, that's why you can watch, uh, Zombie, um, Riverdale for them, um, but that's gonna start changing soon, so Netflix has to start finding its big franchises. This is what Ted Sarandos, who's their head of content, said in a recent earnings call, he was like,

• 59:17Speaker 09

  We know we need franchises. We know they're important. Right now, we're playing, we're trying to do an original movie play, which like, sure. That's what people are coming to Netflix for. Like, it's, it's, I don't understand what they're doing. But they're figuring it out. And I think they're spending more, they are spending more money than anyone else on content every year. They're trying to figure it out. Um, that question comes into play in like 2021, 2022.

• 59:37Speaker 04

  How long, I don't know if we can answer this, but like, they're spending more money, but it's not like they're like, they, they have infinite money.

• 59:44Speaker 09

  No, yeah, and they, they're like, super not, uh, they're not exactly profitable, really. They have a lot of debt. But I mean, the thing that goes around a lot with Reed Hastings is like, don't worry, Reed Hastings is gonna figure this out. He's the guy in the room. Kind of what they say about Jeffrey Katzenberg, who's watching Quibi. They're like, he, he'll figure it out.

• 1:00:01Speaker 04

  If anybody can do it, don't bet against Jeff. We hear it all the time.

• 1:00:04Speaker 09

  Exactly. Um, and I feel like Reed, they've seen it coming. They know this is coming. What's harder, I think, for a lot of like, coming at streaming from a tech angle versus entertainment angles, like, the tech angle is like, let's scale as fast as we can. Right? Apple's doing it. Like, let's launch a bunch of stuff, scale, and we'll take it from there. And content, that's just how entertainment works. It's like, you will, what's good? And like, what can I stick around for? Which is what Disney's kind of doing. Disney's like, we're gonna play our franchise up really high. So every few months, there's gonna be either a new Marvel movie or a new Marvel show on the streaming service. There's gonna be a new Avatar movie or a new Avatar show, apparently, on the service. There's gonna be, and so they've figured it out really well. They, they know how to keep people around, and then they have like, The Simpsons, which will keep people at night.

• 1:00:44Speaker 09

  Um, Hulu to the same extent. It's why FX, Hulu, FX is going to Hulu now. It's like, that's just a smart play. That's a smart like, oh, well, now there's something you can only get here and people are gonna want. Um, so Disney's coming in from an entertainment perspective and going up against a bunch of tech companies, arguably. And that's where they're winning. Versus Apple is like, launched a bunch of shows, none of them are great. Well, Dickinson is great. And then the other ones are terrible.

• 1:01:09Speaker 04

  See, is one of the worst things that ever committed television.

• 1:01:11Speaker 09

  It's terrible, but they're like, uh, we're getting subscribers. And then at the end of the day, they want to like, be in the, you know, Disney, HBO, like, field, but they want subscribers. They want to keep people in their services. They want to keep people in their ecosystem. So it's, it's a different strat play. In five years, I think the biggest thing we see is people just knowing when to cancel and when not to cancel. It's like, I don't need HBO right now. I'm done with it. I'm just gonna go to Disney for a minute.

• 1:01:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:38Speaker 09

  That it's just easier.

• 1:01:38Nilay Patel?

  I would pay $4.99 a month for a live stream with Tim Cook watching See for the first time. I could just have access to that whenever I wanted forever. For the rest of my life, I'd pay $4.99 a month.

• 1:01:48Nilay Patel?

  Like, I just need to, can I, like, I'm in a bad mood. I just wanna be, I just wanna watch Tim Cook reacting to See.

• 1:01:53Speaker 09

  I want See with closed captions, but by Johnny Ive. Like Johnny Ive reading certain things.

• 1:01:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:00Speaker 03

  Correct me if I'm wrong, but, but Apple doesn't have a Simpsons, right?

• 1:02:03Speaker 09

  Yeah, and they, they don't, they aren't making a licensed content play, which is what Netflix did.

• 1:02:08Nilay Patel?

  So these business models are like, there, there's an element to the business models that makes me scared for Netflix. Like, Apple makes monopoly profits on the iPhone, right? They make monopoly profits on the Mac. Like, we just had a whole conversation about, like, well, if you wanna use Mac OS, like, you don't get a space bar for a while. Like, they have these zones where they're just gonna extract the profits, save more money than anybody. There's no way that, the morning show's like one of the most expensive shows, like, ever in television. There's no way that $4.99 a month is paying for the morning show. Like, they're just losing money.

• 1:02:43Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:02:43Nilay Patel?

  They've signed all the shows to a second season.

• 1:02:46Speaker 09

  If not more, yeah.

• 1:02:48Nilay Patel?

  And it's just there. They're just subsidizing this content so that you will use their TV app. And then inside of the TV app, you might buy HBO and HBO will pay Apple a cut.

• 1:02:57Speaker 09

  Right. I mean, so the big thing that Apple's doing, which like, we confirm the details of is, uh, they're in final, final negotiations to sign Richard Plepler, which is like the greatest kind of F you to AT&T. It's kinda like, you guys-

• 1:03:09Nilay Patel?

  People I don't know.

• 1:03:10Speaker 09

  Oh, yeah, sorry, sorry. Um, Richard Plepler is like the visionary, uh, at HBO. He was the visionary at HBO. He's the one who really championed Game of Thrones when no one believed in it. And he's like, "I think there's something here. Turns out..." He was right. He did a lot of shows before that. He's really responsible for it. And when AT&T came in and basically said, "We are gonna, we need you to increase your output by 50%." We're launching HBO Max. We need to have all this content. He was like, I don't think that's how you do TV. It's not how we've done it. So he left.

• 1:03:38Nilay Patel?

  And then everyone else left too.

• 1:03:39Speaker 09

  And then everyone else left. And now he's in final talks with Apple for an exclusive production output deal. So exclusive makes it very big. Like it's a, that's a huge deal. And that would be Apple being like, we want someone who knows how to do good TV. We'll give you the money you need. We'll just give you money. And then we, we want to have Emmys. We want to bring people in. Like that's, feels like the prestige play to me.

• 1:03:59Nilay Patel?

  Where's Amazon gone in all this?

• 1:04:02Speaker 09

  Oh, they're, they're in a very good position. Yeah. They've, they've, they're ordering shows. Well, actually they just made a recent announcement where they're not giving out numbers anymore. So whether, how their movies are doing, we don't know.

• 1:04:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:13Speaker 09

  But their shows are like, they, they, they did a bunch of good stuff at the Emmys this year. My mom finally signed up for Amazon because of the Emmys. So like, they're doing well.

• 1:04:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:22Speaker 09

  Um, but they also have like some of the best licensing deals. Like all the, all the networks want to be on Amazon channels. Like they want to be in it because they get subscribers through it. So Amazon's like happy being like, we'll be the home to SpongeBob SquarePants seasons. And then also you can watch Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

• 1:04:38Nilay Patel?

  So I think the reason that all the networks want to be there in that, those channel deals is because the Fire TV is organized around making you buy that stuff. Yeah.

• 1:04:45Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:04:45Nilay Patel?

  So you buy this like cheap stick from Amazon. People actually really like Fire TVs. And then the whole interface is like, do you want to buy some new stuff? And I don't think we ever talk about that as being the actual innovation that it is.

• 1:04:56Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:04:57Nilay Patel?

  Like for so long, the dream was like an à la carte cable bundle. And the Fire TV effectively delivers that to you.

• 1:05:03Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:05:03Nilay Patel?

  Right. Right. You plug it in. There's a bunch. If you're a Prime member, there's a bunch of free stuff. Cool. You're like, I'd like to get HBO. And you know, I push the button and go. That's what Apple wants to do with the TV app.

• 1:05:12Speaker 09

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:12Nilay Patel?

  It's just horrible. Yeah.

• 1:05:14Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:05:14Nilay Patel?

  But the TV app is like embarrassingly bad. Yep. Uh, the only thing good about the TV app is it is the best looking app that has ever been shipped on the Roku. Like, we had the CEO of Roku on the show. I was like, why is your interface so bad? He's like, you know, whatever. People don't give a shit. And then Apple ships this app. It's like you, they lied. They lied to me. Like, there's no limitation to this operating system at all. They just don't care. And like, all these apps are bad.

• 1:05:36Speaker 03

  Speaking of apps, Vizio didn't make a Disney Plus app. Plus, their Chromecast version is like one point release too old to work with Disney Plus. So Vizio officially recommends airplaying.

• 1:05:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it makes, but that only works on new Vizio TVs. So this is like another problem that I think the Disney Plus launch in particular, and to a smaller extent, the Apple launch really highlighted, which is Netflix is very good at making apps that work very well on every platform they're on. And they have a huge lead in just like consumer experience. Disney launches, The Simpsons is in the wrong aspect ratio. And it's like, they should have known. That, that, that, that train was just coming for them.

• 1:06:21Speaker 09

  It's been a conversation for years. I feel like, yeah.

• 1:06:24Nilay Patel?

  Disney, the app on like LG TVs doesn't support surround sound. Like, it just doesn't do it. It's ridiculous. The Apple app supports Dolby Vision and Atmos on the Apple TV box. And like everywhere else, it's like SD quality.

• 1:06:42Nilay Patel?

  They're like, there's an element to this where they want to go wide. They want to be horizontal. They want to be in every platform. But they are going to offer worse experiences. I think with Apple, it makes perfect sense. If you want the best experience, you have to buy their hardware.

• 1:06:54Speaker 09

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:06:54Nilay Patel?

  But they're cutting themselves off because Netflix is going to deliver you a superior like experience for so many things.

• 1:07:02Speaker 09

  I've been talking about this a lot recently, and I think what it comes down to, at least the way I see it and the way I'm talking to people, Disney is an entertainment company. They've always been an entertainment company. Their whole focus is, it's so funny, like, we went to a Disney event and all the tech questions came up. And like, you could tell that Michael Paul, who's the head of BAMTech and who has, was like very excited. And the Disney guys were like there to listen. And then I'd be like, I'd be like, let's talk licensing. And they were like, yes. And like, this is what we do. This is our movies, our TV shows. And Netflix, started by a bunch of tech guys, like Silicon Valley, came right out of Silicon Valley. And, you know, it's funny, everything about the way Disney launched, people were like, this is a terrible product launch. And I was like, this is one of their first major products.

• 1:07:43Speaker 09

  Like, they, they, they're movies. Like, they're like, we, we give it to the theaters and then they play and then we make money.

• 1:07:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:49Speaker 09

  Uh, and now it's like, okay, well, the aspect ratio is off. Why is that? I don't know. Like, people are noticing, like, there's issues that are happening and they're like, yeah, well, we know we're testing it, we're figuring it out as we go. Uh, and it's like, that was the least surprising thing to me.

• 1:08:02Speaker 04

  Well, hmm, Disney's really big, so it's fair to say this is like one of their first products, but they've got the Imagineers, they like, they've got the theme parks.

• 1:08:10Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:08:10Speaker 04

  Like, there's like, real, real software and engineering and expertise that goes into all that stuff. Like, they, they make, they make robots that flip through the air.

• 1:08:18Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:08:19Speaker 04

  Just cause they're bored. It's like, I was like, talking to Matt Penzerino, uh, from TechCrunch about this. It's like, actually, Disney has, the, one of the last pure, go there and research and do stuff because you feel like it, places you can go. They're like, they're, they're the new Bell Labs. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, sorry.

• 1:08:35Speaker 09

  No, I, I think-

• 1:08:36Speaker 04

  So they're a big company, like, they should have just talked to those guys.

• 1:08:39Speaker 09

  Yeah, I think you're right. I also think, like, they should have, I don't know how much they talk to the BAMTech teams about how people use streaming services, but the way the Disney app, the Disney Plus app works, it's a lot of like, I don't think you know how people use streaming services. Like, whereas Netflix feels very in tune to like, how you're going to do things. It's like, we know you're gonna wanna skip our intro, or know you're gonna wanna, when the credits start rolling, we're gonna skip four and five seconds. Um, even like, the new gimmicky things you're doing, where like, the Seth Meyers thing, where it's like, oh, we'll just let you skip over the Trump joke, because you're just gonna fast forward otherwise. Like, we get how you, it's so intuitive, and that's something that no other streaming service has, at least at this point, um, with, whereas Netflix dominates.

• 1:09:18Speaker 04

  So the, the skip intro button, in the intro to the Great British Baking Show, there's a moment where the child touches the bread. And it's like, don't, don't let your kid with their dirty hands touch the bread. The skip intro button appears half a second before that scene. And so every time we watch that show, it is a game to see if you can hit the skip intro before the, uh, the kid touches the bread. Is this like a riddle? What is happening at your house? It doesn't appear until right before that scene.

• 1:09:46Nilay Patel?

  It sounds like you're describing like how to get to a treasure. It ruins the show. One second before the child touches the brain.

• 1:09:51Speaker 09

  How do we make the Great British Bake Off interactive?

• 1:09:55Nilay Patel?

  That is the most conflict that has ever been described in The Great British Bake Off. The skip intro button in the Apple TV app does not actually skip the intro. Yes, thank you.

• 1:10:04Speaker 09

  It's terrible.

• 1:10:05Nilay Patel?

  Like, I don't, it's very confusing. But that's like an element of this competition I think is under-reported. Like, they're now delivering consumer experiences with a lot of pressure on them, with a lot of design competition, with a lot of feature competition. Do you think they're up for it?

• 1:10:21Speaker 09

  Them being Disney?

• 1:10:22Nilay Patel?

  Them, Disney, Apple. The interface for HBO Max looks bonkers.

• 1:10:28Speaker 09

  It's a social media network. It looks like MySpace.

• 1:10:30Nilay Patel?

  It is, it is very confused. It has stories.

• 1:10:33Speaker 09

  I'm like expecting Tom to add me as his friend. Like, it's, it's just, it's a, yeah, it has stories, it has recommendations from Zac Efron. HBO Max in terms of interface is like the thing I'm most excited about. I just want to play with it. Like, it just looks weird. It's like, hey, we watched this. Do you want to download your podcast? And you're like, sure, streaming service. Like, that sounds great.

• 1:10:51Nilay Patel?

  HBO Max, just to highlight what you were saying, has a podcast player in it.

• 1:10:56Speaker 09

  Great. Because they make all their interconnect.

• 1:10:59Nilay Patel?

  They have, they have stories so that when you're like looking for the thing, you can like watch a Zac Efron video blog about his recommendations. Yeah. Can you imagine being the person HBO, like the 22-year-old intern, who's like texting Zac Efron's manager being like, did Zac do his blog today? Like, that's where, that's, that's what they're trying to build.

• 1:11:18Speaker 09

  The interesting thing is that HBO wants to super push human curation, which is funny because it's the thing we talk about the most with Netflix's algorithm, which is like, why don't people watch this? And it's like, well, they rely on their algorithm for everything in the way that like we talked about YouTube relying on the algorithm for everything. So HBO's whole thing is, we're going to curate it for you. And they were talking about this on stage at a recent media day for the HBO Max when they were unveiling it. And I couldn't help but picture the worst part of like my life when one of my exes had an Xbox and everything was controlled by, hey, Xbox, can you do this? And I would have to be like, Xbox, can you turn on Netflix? Xbox, can you do this? And I hated it because I hated having to interact personally with the Xbox. And the way HBO Max sold it was like, we're going to personally talk to you about everything. And like, I don't want that.

• 1:12:00Speaker 09

  I want to like come home and like eat a burrito and just scroll through something until I fall asleep.

• 1:12:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, the last thing you want is your TV recognizing your humanity. Because then you have to pay attention to it and you're like, why am I watching TV?

• 1:12:10Speaker 09

  Yes.

• 1:12:13Nilay Patel?

  We've really, fully off the rails.

• 1:12:15Speaker 09

  Sorry.

• 1:12:15Nilay Patel?

  Julia, let's end it. Well, we ended with, "I don't want my television to recognize my humanity", which I feel really synthesizes something deep about the streaming wars.

• 1:12:24Speaker 03

  The way to reclaim power over the Xbox in that relationship is that Xbox recognizes snake sputs as a wake word. So just letting you know, in case it comes up again.

• 1:12:33Nilay Patel?

  I don't, I, again, would like to apologize to the audience. Don't know how that one got through. All right, let's wrap it up, Julia. It's go 90 scale time.

• 1:12:43Speaker 09

  Oh, I love it.

• 1:12:43Nilay Patel?

  If you're aware of the go 90 scale of Doom streaming services, it's how we, how we evaluate streaming services. You can go from zero, or you can go 90, which is death. So that's the scale, zero to 90, to gone 90. Disney Plus, where are they on the scale right now?

• 1:12:59Speaker 09

  They're at 10.

• 1:13:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:00Speaker 09

  Yeah, they're fine. Disney's got Disney content.

• 1:13:03Nilay Patel?

  Netflix.

• 1:13:03Speaker 03

  Is 10 win or die? 10 is good, okay.

• 1:13:05Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:13:06Nilay Patel?

  Zero is like guaranteed survival.

• 1:13:08Speaker 03

  Why doesn't it go to 90?

• 1:13:09Nilay Patel?

  It does go to 90. 90 is death.

• 1:13:11Speaker 03

  Got it.

• 1:13:11Nilay Patel?

  The scale is confusing.

• 1:13:12Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:13:13Nilay Patel?

  Okay, Netflix.

• 1:13:15Speaker 09

  20.

• 1:13:15Nilay Patel?

  Inching closer to death.

• 1:13:17Speaker 09

  Yeah, until they figure out their original content plan.

• 1:13:19Nilay Patel?

  Apple TV Plus.

• 1:13:20Speaker 09

  Apple TV Plus, content wise, like 60, 70. Apple TV Plus in terms of it being a successful thing, because it's part of Apple's ecosystem, like 40.

• 1:13:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's that, that's that monopoly boost on the 90 scale.

• 1:13:31Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:13:31Nilay Patel?

  That's like a, it's like a chip you can play. You're like, monopoly boost.

• 1:13:35Speaker 09

  Peacock, solid 100.

• 1:13:40Nilay Patel?

  Peacock is NBC Universal Streaming Services. It is designed to make you buy cable, which NBC is on, like Comcast, you understand why it would be designed.

• 1:13:49Speaker 03

  A division of Comcast. Comcast Ventures is an investor in our parent company, Vox Media.

• 1:13:53Nilay Patel?

  Also NBC itself.

• 1:13:54Speaker 03

  NBC itself.

• 1:13:55Nilay Patel?

  Sorry, buddy. They don't love us. It's not, it's fine. Everything's gonna be fine. If you don't, if you don't hear from us next week, please tell my family. All right. It's a, we're gonna have you on a lot. The streaming wars are in full force, rising, just stumbling about the battlefield. Thank you so much, Julia. We gotta go. You can tweet at us. I'm at Reckless. Dieter's Backlon. Julia's Loudmouth Julia. Paul is Future Paul. I want to tell you something. We're doing something special in the Vergecast for Thanksgiving. We're doing a mini-series about pirate radio. We've got three incredible stories about pirate radio culture. There's DJs in Afghanistan who were provided equipment by the United States during a propaganda effort, and then the United States left and they had to leave. Amazing story.

• 1:14:38Nilay Patel?

  We've got Hmong people in the Midwest who use phone conference lines to distribute radio programming, like party, like conference call software. It's amazing. And there's a bill in Congress called the Pirate Act that will crack down on pirate radio throughout the United States. It's leading to repercussions with Caribbean broadcasters in Queens. All wild stories.

• 1:14:58Speaker 04

  That sounds awful.

• 1:14:59Nilay Patel?

  We set up our own party line, so you can call in and listen to these episodes. We're printing a zine. Whoa. It's super cool to be on the site. There's gonna be features on the site. That first episode's coming Tuesday, the 19th. Stay tuned for that. I also wanted to tell you to listen to Reset from our friends at Vox and Recode. It's hosted by Ariel DeHaem Ross, ex-Verge reporter, one of our very favorites. It's about a broad definition of tackling in science, medicine, politics, now. It comes out Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. Subscribe to Dieter's newsletter. It's at theverge.com/newsletter. And we'll be back very soon on the Vergecast. Rock and roll. Paul.

• 1:15:35Speaker 04

  Promo code.