Hypecheck

To some, it's a black-and-white answer. To others, it's a subtle gray. Some say hype can't be felt, only psychically perceived. It's a beacon of hope, a pillar of truth. We cannot see it, but we know it exists. It's everywhere and nowhere, all at once. We follow its call, but fear its power. We may never agree about what hype truly is, but that doesn't matter. We all know deep down inside that what really counts is that hype is in us all: teeming, stirring, ready to be checked. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  You're so bad at starting the Vergecast.

• 0:10Nilay Patel?

  I have no idea how to start this show.

• 0:13Speaker 02

  Yeah? Is that how we started?

• 0:15Nilay Patel?

  Is this it?

• 0:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 0:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 0:18Speaker 02

  Hi, everybody. My name's Neelai. That's how you start it.

• 0:21Nilay Patel?

  Hey, everybody.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Welcome to the Vergecast.

• 0:23Nilay Patel?

  I can't even do it. It's too forced. It's too artificial. It's not, it's not... Look, I have a personal brand.

• 0:29Speaker 02

  Oh, sure. Is it your bracelet?

• 0:31Nilay Patel?

  It's my bracelet.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 0:33Nilay Patel?

  And here's what I know. This bracelet never...

• 0:35Speaker 02

  We have a live studio audience. I didn't realize Sam is miked right now. So when you say something silly like a half joke, Sam laughs.

• 0:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. That's great.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, we need to talk about your bracelet. We need to talk about what's going on over there.

• 0:47Nilay Patel?

  It's a surprise. So, okay.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Well, it's already...

• 0:50Nilay Patel?

  It's not. No, it's not. Nobody knows.

• 0:52Speaker 02

  Oh, boy.

• 0:53Nilay Patel?

  There's a whole information gap. This is the clickbait of the podcast world.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  Great.

• 0:57Nilay Patel?

  You won't believe what's over there.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  What's laughing at your life jokes.

• 1:02Nilay Patel?

  Hi, welcome to the Vergecast. It is the podcast of the Verge. That's why we made the name of Port Mento, which is a word used on every Wikipedia page. No, hello and welcome to the Vergecast, in which we talk about life.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17Nilay Patel?

  Chris Plant does whatever he does.

• 1:19Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:20Nilay Patel?

  Dieter Bone is smart.

• 1:21Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:22Nilay Patel?

  I mean, Dieter Bone is like, you know, you do your thing. Dieter is...

• 1:25Speaker 02

  And then Dieter's intelligent.

• 1:26Nilay Patel?

  Dieter's intelligent. I try to just hold it together on a basic level. And this week, by the way, I'm Neelai Patel.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  I'm Dieter Bone.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  And I'm Chris Plant.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Actually, I'm the smart one, apparently.

• 1:38Nilay Patel?

  You're the smart one.

• 1:38Speaker 02

  I'm the one who eats fish heads. Great.

• 1:43Nilay Patel?

  We are just... One day, we're gonna figure out how to start this show. It's gonna happen. I promise you.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  It's not a "we" thing. It's a "you" thing.

• 1:50Speaker 01

  All listeners, I'm sorry. I'm adjusting that microphone again.

• 1:53Nilay Patel?

  I prefer to think of the Verge as a team.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  Okay. Who takes all fault.

• 1:58Nilay Patel?

  Yes. We fail together, even when the failings are specifically and only mine.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Except for when somebody makes a good headline, in which case you did it.

• 2:07Nilay Patel?

  Then I did it.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Okay, got it.

• 2:08Nilay Patel?

  Then all success rolls up to me individually. All failure is distributed to us all. That is the model of the Verge.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  A lot of behind the scenes.

• 2:18Nilay Patel?

  A lot of, a lot of inside manipulative baseball going on here.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  This is the first Vergecast after our three year anniversary.

• 2:25Nilay Patel?

  It is. So again, we've learned nothing in the past few years. So I want to introduce readers to our surprise, which is not a surprise, really.

• 2:36Nilay Patel?

  Not a sentence.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Also listeners, not readers.

• 2:39Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah. Listen, Jesus, man. I'm having a bad day.

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Over in the corner.

• 2:44Nilay Patel?

  We have a new segment on the Vergecast. It's not a segment, it's an interwoven melody.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 2:50Nilay Patel?

  A counter melody to our insanity. Sam Sheffer.

• 2:54Speaker 03

  Hi.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  Greetings.

• 2:57Nilay Patel?

  In what he has termed, what's the Sweat Lodge?

• 3:01Speaker 03

  Sweat Zone.

• 3:01Nilay Patel?

  The Sweat Zone. But we will have periodic hype checks with Sam Sheffer.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  For people who only hear this, they don't know that the camera just cut to what looks like a like black room, like the Charlie Rose Show. Like Sam killed Charlie Rose.

• 3:18Speaker 03

  I am in a closet.

• 3:19Speaker 02

  Survived off his flesh for weeks and now has this.

• 3:21Nilay Patel?

  In the beef closet.

• 3:24Speaker 03

  Sweating.

• 3:25Nilay Patel?

  Sweating. These are all words, by the way, in case you're curious, Sam refuses to simply describe something as good. He uses another word that is disturbing to describe something. Good things are beef.

• 3:40Speaker 03

  Beef.

• 3:41Nilay Patel?

  Good things are sweat.

• 3:43Speaker 03

  Bust.

• 3:43Nilay Patel?

  And bad things are bust.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  I thought sweat wasn't a thing.

• 3:47Speaker 03

  Sweat's fading out. Sweat is fading out. I think we've moved past sweat.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  It's evaporated.

• 3:52Nilay Patel?

  What was before sweat?

• 3:53Speaker 03

  Swag.

• 3:54Nilay Patel?

  Sweat, yeah. So.

• 3:55Speaker 03

  Swag, sweat, beef.

• 3:56Nilay Patel?

  Sam is our.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  What comes after beef?

• 4:00Speaker 03

  You'll know soon enough.

• 4:01Nilay Patel?

  Okay. All right. Hype check with Sam Sheffer. This is happening.

• 4:04Speaker 03

  Hey.

• 4:05Nilay Patel?

  A new feature on the Vergecast.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  Swag is, no, no.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  We're really winning over advertisers.

• 4:11Nilay Patel?

  We've never had any.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  The next one, it's marrow. It's marrow.

• 4:15Nilay Patel?

  The Vergecast.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Actually, it's just bone right here.

• 4:18Nilay Patel?

  Dieter is like on an extended riff on the inside of a cow. He's like, a cow gets sweaty. And then you touch the beef and then it's the bones.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:26Nilay Patel?

  That's, that's.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Bone dot zone. Bone dot zone.

• 4:29Speaker 03

  It's a real website.

• 4:30Speaker 01

  It's a real website. Visit it.

• 4:31Nilay Patel?

  In terms of starting a podcast, just not our finest performance. By the way, bone dot zone, you should buy it right now.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  I did already.

• 4:41Nilay Patel?

  All right, lots of.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Go to it. Visit it.

• 4:42Nilay Patel?

  Lots of.

• 4:44Nilay Patel?

  So demanding. All right, incredible amount of news this week.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:51Nilay Patel?

  I mean, just actually, this list is very long.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  We're not doing all, we're not talking about all these things.

• 4:55Nilay Patel?

  All right, so let's start with Android. I will, I will note, I will offer to our listeners here that I have, I have recently become aware of an incredible amount of iVerge-related criticism.

• 5:05Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 5:06Nilay Patel?

  Apparently iVerge was trending on Google Plus,

• 5:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:08Nilay Patel?

  Uh, which I will tell you, I believe says more about the relative size of the audience on Google Plus.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:15Nilay Patel?

  That a handful of angry Verge commenters can trend literally any keyword they want. So that's cool. But, uh, we actually reviewed a bunch of Android stuff this week, so let's start with that.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  So we, we've reviewed the Nexus 9, and then we have previously done hands-ons with Lollipop and the Nexus 6, and, um, reviews for those other things are coming when we have more time to spend with it. But Dan Seifert reviewed this right here, this is the Nexus 9.

• 5:40Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and not very fond of it.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  No.

• 5:42Nilay Patel?

  The Nexus 9 is a tablet, so the Nexus 9 looks exactly like an iPad. Uh, this, it has the same aspect ratio as an iPad. It looks exactly like a gigantic Nexus 5.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:51Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and it is super weird. And from what I can tell, uh, HTC was not like pumped. Like, they cut the price of it.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, the day after it launched, they, they made it, they offered a half-price sale. And of course, I was unable to buy one because their storefront failed. But that's not a, that's not a ringing endorsement.

• 6:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they were like, we're super happy to participate in this process.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  How does that make people who pre-ordered it feel?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  Pretty awesome. They feel great. They were able to contribute to the cause by paying $200 extra to Google to make sure Google can stick around.

• 6:24Nilay Patel?

  Or nobody pre-ordered it. I mean, that's the other, like, right? Or so few people pre-ordered it that they just went half-price on it.

• 6:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:31Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, so you've got it. What do you, what do you think?

• 6:33Speaker 01

  Uh, my take is pretty close to Dan's. Like, you, it's, it's impossible not to compare this to the iPad. And, and for people that, that are claiming iVerge, who say that it's not fair for us to talk about it relative to the iPad, I don't, you have to, because it's this 4x3, uh, it's meant to be the flagship. They, they're no longer selling the Nexus 7, I believe. But the, it's also a classic Nexus device in that it has a new processor. And that the part of the, the point of the Nexus program is to show that Android can run on new stuff. So it's the first, uh, true 64-bit Android device. It's got this K1 processor. Maybe the Nvidia Shield tablet was 64-bit. Anyway, this is whatever.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  And so it's like, it's super duper crazy fast, except when it's not.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  I started looking at your email by accident and decided I would definitely not do that.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, you're cool.

• 7:29Nilay Patel?

  Cool plan. Way to be a spy. Way to participate in our surveillance.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  No, like I, like, I'm like, there's, there's no lag here at all. Everything is fast and awesome. And then all of a sudden, oh, wait, I'm not really sure why.

• 7:40Speaker 02

  So why?

• 7:40Speaker 01

  And then the other problem is the hardware is like, like not ultra, super primo. It's nice. It's fine. It's a giant Nexus 5, but it's.

• 7:48Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it really looks like they didn't try. Like in the sense that if you have, like you can't, it's the tablet, right? You compare it against the market leader. If you compare it to the iPad Air or the Air 2, it's not as nice. If you compare it to any of the surfaces, it's not as nice. What it is, is a giant inexpensive cellphone.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Well, it's not that inexpensive.

• 8:09Nilay Patel?

  But no, I'm saying like the Nexus 5 is an inexpensively designed cellphone.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:13Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like the Nexus, like, except for the one that, except for the, the, the orange slash red one.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Which is beautiful.

• 8:20Nilay Patel?

  Which is not, but only because of the vibrancy of the color. Uh, it's a pretty basic phone and this is a pretty basic tablet. What do you, Chris? What do you?

• 8:28Speaker 02

  I didn't even write anything down for it. I want, I want to try it out. I mean, I made all of my decisions with smartphones and tablets and everything off of games before this. So the answer was always obvious. You went with Apple, which is so hysterical because Apple being known for games is.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Their Android is getting better at its games. It's still not caught up, but like, I don't know. You got Rimkripsel. What else do you need?

• 8:53Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, it, it, yeah, it's difficult for Android. I, I know the people who made Bounden, which was probably my favorite game on iOS this year because it's a game that teaches you how to dance. And they have a famous photo where it's like Bounden trying to run on 30 different Android devices. And all they're trying to do is find like north essentially because it uses the gyroscope and not one of them got it. And they're all giving different answers. Like this is on top of like having to worry about theft, there's also this.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  So it's, I don't know. But like I said, that's just me. I'm a very weird person who is still a child at heart, who just wants to play video games on my phone all day.

• 9:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that really explains your productivity.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  So the most compelling thing about the tablet is Lollipop.

• 9:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  Lollipop is great.

• 9:38Nilay Patel?

  Wait, before you go into Lollipop, hype check.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Hype check.

• 9:41Speaker 03

  Why is that $400?

• 9:43Nilay Patel?

  That's it. Hype check over.

• 9:47Nilay Patel?

  That's it, man.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Hype check can be a question?

• 9:48Nilay Patel?

  The hype check can be, it's free for, it's like the jazz of beef. I don't know what that means. It's something. The hype check is a new, we're iterating.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  We're learning.

• 9:59Nilay Patel?

  That was our first official.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Why is this $400? Because, uh, reasons. Straight up. I don't know.

• 10:06Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  The screen is very good. It's very, I don't know, the dimensions off the top of my head, the pixel density. It's not like as good as an iPad Air. It's not super laminated, but it's very, you know, pixel dense. It's fine.

• 10:18Nilay Patel?

  It's, it's, this is a commodity product. Like, that's the thing with it, right? It's the thing they, like, Google put it out in the world to be like, you can make this now. Samsung, please make a better riff on this. Or

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:30Nilay Patel?

  rando Chinese manufacturer, like, take this reference design and run away. By the way, here's our song.

• 10:34Speaker 01

  More than any other Nexus device ever, this feels like a reference design more than a product.

• 10:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Okay. Tell me about Lollipop.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Uh, it is really pretty.

• 10:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 10:44Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, we'll, we'll do the full review, but basically, uh, I love the new multitaskers called Overview. You can put multiple tabs in it from your Chrome browser and like email drafts show up in that in the same way that all your other apps do in the multitasker. The only problem, the only beef I have with it in a bad way.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Is

• 11:05Nilay Patel?

  Non-sweaty beef.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. The animations are pretty like, look at me, I'm an animation. I'm going to show you how this operating system works by animating slowly.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Like the pull down thing in the browser, that weird goop that comes up?

• 11:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, this was the same problem with iOS 7, right? Like, the animations were great. Like, oh, I understand how things work now. And like, okay, I get it. I get it. Just work. I don't need to watch the animation. There's a little bit of that.

• 11:27Nilay Patel?

  But it's Like, two, two slow animations are like, they're Like insulting.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:31Nilay Patel?

  Like you're stupid. You don't know where this window is going.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, you need it. You need it the first time.

• 11:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  And then after that, they, they, there should be a, a curve where they.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  Decay.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  They detect how quickly you're actually like able to get around the operating system. And if you're doing just fine, it'll speed up the animations for you.

• 11:51Nilay Patel?

  Cause you know what I want is for my phone to monitor me more closely.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  It's already doing it, bro.

• 11:56Speaker 01

  That ship has sailed.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:00Nilay Patel?

  Come on, man. Surveillance state.

• 12:02Speaker 02

  Yep. It exists.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  I'm just saying.

• 12:09Nilay Patel?

  But what, man? That's again, it's, it's, uh, it's my brand. My brand.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Tomorrow's off end. Come on, man. Surveillance state.

• 12:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. It's not knowing how to start a podcast. And, uh, just saying the word surveillance state in a somewhat judgmental tone.

• 12:27Speaker 02

  You can assume what I meant.

• 12:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Surveillance state.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 12:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, man. It's something. Uh, Sam.

• 12:34Speaker 03

  Hey.

• 12:34Nilay Patel?

  Hype check, Lollipop.

• 12:37Nilay Patel?

  Oh, that's a bad face. Sam.

• 12:38Speaker 01

  Oh, he want, no, you know what that face is?

• 12:40Nilay Patel?

  Sam doesn't.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  Wants to say beef and he's not willing to do it.

• 12:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, cause he's Iverge.

• 12:46Speaker 03

  I, I haven't, I haven't used an Nexus device like fully since a while ago. So I hype check is, it's, I, I want to be honest in this hype check seat and I, I can't.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 13:00Speaker 03

  I can't, I can't say, I can't hype check on Lollipop because I haven't used it.

• 13:04Nilay Patel?

  All right. Fair.

• 13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:06Nilay Patel?

  Fair.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:07Nilay Patel?

  I appreciate that. All right. And then lastly, we have the, the six as well is with us. Uh, and Dieter, you're in the process of like using and reviewing it.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:15Nilay Patel?

  Here's what I will say about the six right away and it will surprise no one. Has an OLED screen and I think it's not a very good screen. I think it is less good than other screens.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  My first impression was, oh, here's Neela goes again.

• 13:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  With the OLED and my second impression is, oh shit.

• 13:31Nilay Patel?

  Yep.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Neela's kind of right.

• 13:33Nilay Patel?

  We'll see. I mean, it's vibrant and colorful and all the

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, unless you're looking for it, you're gonna love it. But if you're like, if you hear certain kinds of criticisms, you'll see them.

• 13:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I just don't know how we can still be in this, in this place. You're gonna review the phone and then we'll talk about it.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  But like, the main thing to say here is, in my initial hands-on, I said that the camera was really good. Or at least by Nexus standards, which isn't so much. And I haven't changed my mind yet.

• 14:05Nilay Patel?

  Okay, that's something. That's saying something.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. And also, it is just big.

• 14:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  I'm, it's aggravating that it's no longer a clever thing to say anymore that this phone is huge.

• 14:18Nilay Patel?

  This phone's huge.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  It's bigger than the Note 4, it's bigger than the 6 Plus.

• 14:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:23Speaker 01

  It's a big phone.

• 14:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm so used to the 6 Plus now that, I mean, we're just getting to the place where we're just gonna carry on tablets.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:31Nilay Patel?

  A year from now, this will feel very normal.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  So when are we gonna get to the place where?

• 14:37Nilay Patel?

  I tried to hand the phone to Chris and he just rejected me.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  I wanna, I honestly want you guys to set me up with an Android phone, though.

• 14:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  Because I have a feeling, I don't like, no, I don't wanna break that one. You have to still use it. I, like, I don't use Safari, I use Chrome. Everybody in the office is like, oh, Chrome's so slow. No, they're crazy. I love, I love Chrome.

• 15:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  And I love everything else Google.

• 15:03Nilay Patel?

  Wait, you love, on the phone, you love Chrome?

• 15:06Speaker 02

  No, I love using Chrome on my laptop.

• 15:08Nilay Patel?

  Everybody uses Chrome on their laptop. Who uses Safari in our office on their laptop?

• 15:13Speaker 02

  I said, I love Chrome. Everybody was like, oh, Safari's so great.

• 15:17Nilay Patel?

  But this is a cycle. A new version of OS X comes out, and then everyone switches to Safari for a month, and then Safari starts doing, because it's faster, right?

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:26Speaker 02

  Every time I try to load anything, it breaks.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  What are you trying to load?

• 15:29Speaker 02

  Anything. Like, literally anything. And it just breaks.

• 15:32Nilay Patel?

  That's, it's the month. It's like the hit of speed. And then you're like.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  No, thank you.

• 15:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And then you're like, ah, this is destroying my life. It's drugs.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:41Nilay Patel?

  Basically, the metaphor I'm using exactly is safari is cocaine.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  The metaphor that works for all of tech. It's awesome until it's really not.

• 15:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's awesome until it destroys your life and you're not productive anymore.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Eventually, you find yourself making a career of it and looking back in the crystal ball and wondering why.

• 15:57Nilay Patel?

  How did this happen to me?

• 16:02Speaker 01

  It's huge.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  Like, why? I don't wanna, this is how I have to hold my phone.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  It's like, you know what it is?

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Do you wanna see the photo I took of you?

• 16:09Speaker 01

  It's like, uh, it's like if you play Dungeons and Dragons and you wanna be the guy that has to use a two-handed sword.

• 16:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  That's that thing.

• 16:16Speaker 02

  That's a treat.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  I'm never that guy. I'm a rogue thief.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  Really?

• 16:20Nilay Patel?

  That's what I mean, but of course, look at, look at Chris. What could you be but a rogue thief?

• 16:24Speaker 02

  I, I know, and I'm always very small and I'm specializing in backflips. That's not an option. I'm like, put the points in backflips.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  So, uh.

• 16:34Nilay Patel?

  So.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  Plus six backlifts.

• 16:36Nilay Patel?

  So you're saying you're not good at this game?

• 16:38Speaker 02

  No, I'm great in, I'm great in Dungeons and Dragons. Every answer is like, what are you gonna do? There's dragon coming at you. I'm like, backflip on it.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  Like, you can't do that. I'm like, actually, I have plus six in backlifts.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  There's gonna be a, a verge D and D campaign that's being run by TC.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  Really?

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was gonna run it and then decided it'd be inappropriate for me to be the dungeon master. And so I handed it off to TC. He's never played D and D in his life.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  Why?

• 17:00Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 17:00Speaker 02

  And he's gonna DM it?

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  No.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  This is why it's exciting, because he's like, super into it, super excited, and has been doing literally nothing but watching people play D and D on Twitch for 12 hours a day. If he's not working, he's watching people play D and D right now.

• 17:14Nilay Patel?

  To, but, do you?

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Okay, I'm on the way.

• 17:16Nilay Patel?

  Let me, let me ask you a question, and it's just a really honest question. Do you think we're ruining TC's life?

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:22Nilay Patel?

  Okay. Just to be clear, as long as we're doing it with intent.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Oh, no, yeah.

• 17:28Nilay Patel?

  I mean, cuz I'll, I'll happily ruin lives.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 17:30Nilay Patel?

  Just as long as we, we've affirmatively decided, like we're doing it, Chris.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  So wait, hang on, so you.

• 17:37Nilay Patel?

  I knew that was happening.

• 17:38Speaker 01

  Let's, let's, let's nerd check here. Have you, have you ever played D and D?

• 17:42Nilay Patel?

  Nerd check?

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Have you ever played an RPG?

• 17:43Nilay Patel?

  I have.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Do you know what RPG stands for?

• 17:46Nilay Patel?

  No. Wait, yes, I know what that stands for. I'm not gonna tell you, though.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  You know what is that?

• 17:52Nilay Patel?

  Uh, a girl told me what RPG stands for at Niagara Falls one time.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  What? What is that story?

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Hype check.

• 18:02Nilay Patel?

  Hype check. I've never seen The Breakfast Club. That's, you've never seen The Breakfast Club?

• 18:06Speaker 03

  Uh, no, I did. Actually, I watched it for the first time a few months ago.

• 18:09Nilay Patel?

  Okay, I'm just gonna go on record here saying now, before you, the Vergecast audience, the various hype beasts that you tweet at, however the hell your life works, it is worse to have not seen The Breakfast Club than to have never played Dungeons and Dragons.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  No, but I've seen The Breakfast Club. I just didn't catch that reference because I've only seen it once.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  No.

• 18:29Speaker 03

  No, I've only seen it once.

• 18:30Speaker 02

  I think, well, if you care about games at all, I think Dungeons and Dragons is the first thing that you should have ever played. I think, and I say this to somebody who hadn't played it through most of my life, and now I seriously regret that I hadn't played it.

• 18:41Nilay Patel?

  What if you care about being like a cool dude from the 80s?

• 18:43Speaker 02

  Oh, then 100% you should have played D and D.

• 18:47Nilay Patel?

  Damn it. I really walked into that one, didn't I?

• 18:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think you know exactly where that was going.

• 18:51Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying, my personal brand is modeled after, uh...

• 18:54Speaker 02

  The Breakfast Club. You're John Nelson.

• 18:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, what am I, Anthony Michael Hall?

• 18:58Speaker 02

  Suddenly, Susan, we all saw that show. We all know where he goes.

• 19:01Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I have to start talking about my personal brand.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Please.

• 19:07Nilay Patel?

  I mean, come on, man. How would Bender start a podcast? You know what I'm saying? He wouldn't do it well, is basically, that's the answer.

• 19:14Speaker 02

  No, I, uh...

• 19:14Nilay Patel?

  Sam, go home and watch The Breakfast Club.

• 19:16Speaker 03

  I've seen it, I promise.

• 19:18Nilay Patel?

  What is The Breakfast Club about?

• 19:20Speaker 03

  They're all in detention, and there's like, all these...

• 19:23Nilay Patel?

  Did you just Google The Breakfast Club?

• 19:24Speaker 03

  No, I'm on Twitter. I'm on Twitter, I promise.

• 19:27Nilay Patel?

  There's like a real chance you just Googled The Breakfast Club.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  Here, I will close my computer and not be a Wikipedia entry.

• 19:31Nilay Patel?

  But you already did it. You can't, like, closing your computer doesn't take the knowledge away.

• 19:34Speaker 03

  Look, the one thing I remember most from the movie is they all smoke weed in the library, and then it, the ending, I sort of wish there was more, actually.

• 19:46Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 19:46Speaker 03

  And like, it didn't, it didn't really feel like it closed properly. Like, you just, you just...

• 19:51Speaker 01

  This is a kid, if we, if we, look, if I made you watch, say anything, you would just be like, "Why doesn't he just have an iPod?"

• 19:59Speaker 02

  It's the most iconic ending of any movie released in the 1980s.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  An hour and a half unraveling all these characters and it's like, okay guys, detention's over, let's go home.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's life. There's, you have to manufacture your own catharsis out of nothing.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  They tell you what happens to them. They even, they do give you that moment. Where do you, when you, when you be like, well, and after that, they had a few more kids and then they died, they're buried in this grave and now their grandchildren.

• 20:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, that's how Harry Potter ended and it sucked.

• 20:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm sorry. Sam, we, it's amazing how emotional we've all gotten about The Breakfast Club in the past five minutes.

• 20:43Speaker 03

  Start with Niagara Falls.

• 20:44Nilay Patel?

  Let's talk about ruining some other 80s legends and transition directly into Star Wars.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 20:50Nilay Patel?

  Chris, I believe you probably have some thoughts on Star Wars.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Uh huh. You skipped all the things I had notes on.

• 20:55Nilay Patel?

  Wait, read some other notes.

• 20:56Speaker 02

  No, no, for Star Wars, I had, it's a subtitle, who cares? Cause like, that's what your reaction should be.

• 21:02Nilay Patel?

  It's a subtitle.

• 21:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is. It's a subtitle. Episode seven, A Dream Awoken.

• 21:10Nilay Patel?

  A Dream Awoken.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Whatever.

• 21:12Speaker 03

  This is a Disney film.

• 21:13Speaker 02

  It means like, this is like the Marvel structure of like, just barely giving you anything.

• 21:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  And then making a huge deal out of it. It's like, thank goodness everybody works at Disney now, where everybody can use the same shitty PR mechanism for us to be talking about this stuff non-stop.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  What does it mean?

• 21:31Speaker 01

  It got tweeted off of the Disney account.

• 21:32Nilay Patel?

  A force awakening.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  The force awakening.

• 21:34Speaker 02

  No, I get it, it's words. What does it mean?

• 21:36Speaker 01

  All my jokes about this are gone, are like, not cool now, because he went meta and complained about the PR strategy.

• 21:41Nilay Patel?

  Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  I have a bunch of good jokes.

• 21:44Nilay Patel?

  Don't let the rogue thief steal you.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  I mean, I will say I need to play the Paladin, so.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  That makes a lot of sense.

• 21:53Speaker 03

  Pipe check, this is nerdy.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  I do.

• 21:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, yes, Dieter called it nerd check before we even began. You can't, you can't muscle in with a hype check that's like, here's obvious name.

• 22:03Speaker 03

  I have my own seat. I got hype check power.

• 22:08Nilay Patel?

  Let's be very clear, this is a test. We're gonna see if it works. That seat may not be forever.

• 22:14Speaker 03

  Hype check no more.

• 22:14Nilay Patel?

  Alright. No, that, that's the worst Tears for Fears record.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  So Star Wars.

• 22:21Nilay Patel?

  Star Wars.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  Here's the thing, I'm sure the movie is gonna be interesting. I'm sure we're all gonna go see it.

• 22:27Nilay Patel?

  Mm-hmm.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  So like, why do we have to be punished with the advertising? Like, they are, it's already gonna happen. Everybody's gonna go see the movie. Like, that I have to deal with the insufferable, like, what is it? Uh, I'm slapping my arm right now. IV drip?

• 22:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  Of like, marketing BS?

• 22:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  For the next, what? I guess nine years at least? Because, of course, they're gonna have another six movies after these six. Like, I don't know, it just seems really exhausting. And I'm already so burnt out on the Marvel cycle. So to like, know that this is gonna be on top of that? It's, it's taking the fun out of it.

• 23:05Nilay Patel?

  But I think that's...

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Isn't that just because you're jacked in? More, like, you're the, like, who follows, you know?

• 23:11Speaker 02

  I think it's because I'm actually just outside of it. Like, I really loved Star Wars as a kid. And then the prequels really turned me away from it. And the kind of culture around it, of just obsessing? Like, I, I don't know, I, I bought a lot of things when I was like, uh, uh, young? And then I realized that, that I, they didn't make me happy. So then, like, seeing things that...

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Well, you just did it wrong. You bought the wrong things.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  That's, I made the mistake. But like, I don't know, it's the same thing when I go to Comic-Con and I see all these vendors, like, profiting off this shit that, like, people don't really want, and then I get really depressed. And I get, there are things that, like, are great, and like, fandom is awesome. But this just feels like very careful and meditated, and not part of the creative process.

• 23:56Nilay Patel?

  Hmm.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  I don't know, I, I get bummed out easily by anything Disney is essentially connected to at this point. Because it's so orchestrated. Uh, and if you, like, pull back the curtain and see The Wizard for more than two seconds, like, it's gone. Like, but I do like J.J. Abrams, like, what he's doing. I like, I like his more, like, pseudo-viral thing, which I also is part, it's part of this too.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Machine.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  But at least it feel, at least it's making an effort to feel, like, playful? Uh, while so much of the other stuff is just like...

• 24:27Nilay Patel?

  Well, here's, I, I think that, it's funny, I think the Marvel thing works. Because Marvel, like, Marvel movies tend to make people happy. Like, they see them and they're like, "That was a good crappy movie," right? Like...

• 24:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:41Nilay Patel?

  Right, like, there was like a... No, it's just like.

• 24:44Speaker 02

  I think comic books have been exploiting people for so long that we're just used to it too. Like, it's like, we sell things for like, four bucks and they're six pages long to kids.

• 24:53Nilay Patel?

  Right, but the Star Wars stuff, like, that whole franchise has been burned so thoroughly to the ground, that it's like, you're just manipulating the people who are too dumb to see how bad those movies were, right? And they're excited about, like, bringing back this franchise that currently sucks, as far as I can tell, right? Like, those last three movies were terrible, and then all the remakes of the existing movies were terrible.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Well, that's, that's, that's what's behind this marketing, is like, no, you guys, we got it this time, we're cool. They should, they should have called it A New Hope for real.

• 25:26Speaker 02

  Well, the best thing they have going for themselves is-

• 25:28Nilay Patel?

  An actual new hope.

• 25:29Speaker 02

  It was prequels, right? So, because our minds are trying to think of things as like, progress, somehow, in the best of ways for them, the shit is at the bottom, and we can think like, oh, it just gets better. Like, we got the prequels out of the way, and those are crappy, but then, like, the stuff in the middle is really great, and that must be the thing that comes after it, it's gonna be awesome.

• 25:50Nilay Patel?

  I mean, that's-

• 25:51Speaker 02

  It's a silly way of thinking, but I 100% think that's the way, because we can bring back all the people we're familiar with, the stuff that they couldn't do in the prequels, you can't have Luke.

• 26:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  But now, now we got Luke back, we got Leia back.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  And he's got a, yeah, he's got a beard.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  We got Joker Luke.

• 26:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  I hope that he just does the Joker's voice all the time.

• 26:11Nilay Patel?

  Like, I just, like, I, I, I will, I don't have-

• 26:16Speaker 02

  I really want it to be good. I think the movies probably will be good.

• 26:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  It's just everything around it is-

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Although, I gotta say, Star Trek Into Darkness, not so good.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  Yeah?

• 26:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  I didn't even see it.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just, he needs to make sure that he, like, is forming a coherent, believable universe, and he didn't do a great job of that in Into Darkness.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  In Khan.

• 26:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  Is there something to say about-

• 26:38Nilay Patel?

  Wait, wait, wait, hype check, Star Wars.

• 26:40Speaker 03

  Is there something to say about how-

• 26:42Nilay Patel?

  No, dude, that's your fucking wake word, is hype check.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  Hype check.

• 26:45Nilay Patel?

  That's how I'm gonna move into the next topic, by the way.

• 26:47Speaker 03

  Uh, no, I just, I just wanted a hype check about Star Wars real quick. Plant. Growing up in the 80s, there was no internet, so you were not flooded by tweets- Okay, Mr. Technical.

• 26:58Nilay Patel?

  Mr. Technical, the Deere bone story.

• 27:01Speaker 03

  We were not flooded with tweets and Facebook posts and Verge.com articles. And you were a kid and you just saw commercials and you heard your friends talking about it. No, I'm just saying that I think the...

• 27:14Nilay Patel?

  How did you get around?

• 27:16Speaker 03

  I think your jadedness perhaps comes from you growing up one way and now these movies are coming out. You're older and there's just so much crap that's surrounding them on the internet that it sort of takes away the specialness of it. Just like you see...

• 27:33Nilay Patel?

  Sure. Let me sum up what Sam was saying to you. Let me sum up this question. Is life less special now that you're closer to death?

• 27:39Speaker 02

  Um, I would have to say, you know, no, because I make my own money so I can buy as much candy as I want. But like, that's just me. It's just me.

• 27:53Speaker 03

  You guys?

• 27:54Speaker 02

  I know what he's saying.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Assuming that... Okay, this... I can't. Actually, no, I can't talk about this. Never mind. There might be something amazing on the Verge.com. I'm just saying.

• 28:03Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah. Editorial apps. Yep, yep, yep, product team.

• 28:09Nilay Patel?

  I will say, by the way, fact, the font in the Star Wars poster is the same font as the Verge logo.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  It's a variation of NPS.

• 28:18Nilay Patel?

  I mean, because our logo's a logo.

• 28:21Speaker 02

  I was reading about Kerting today, so I feel pretty much like I'm in the know.

• 28:27Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I think that's pretty much every typography conversation.

• 28:30Speaker 02

  I want to go back to what Sam said because I do think there's a point about this. That marketing, because of the internet, basically, however, whatever tool we use to communicate is eventually quickly taken over by the marketing machine monster. Right? So... Back in the day, we had magazines, like, once a month, and slowly, you know, like, half the magazine is the marketing. It's like, oh, whatever. And then you have, like, those early websites, like IGN, which I did read when I was a kid, which was, like, 1996, maybe. And, and like, that would, like, they would update the ads on that, like, every, you know, day, maybe. And now, because of Twitter, it's like, every second. NPR people

• 29:14Speaker 02

  have figured out how to, like, make use of all of that.

• 29:18Nilay Patel?

  Wait, you said PR people, right?

• 29:19Speaker 02

  PR people and marketing.

• 29:20Nilay Patel?

  I thought you said NPR people.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  NPR people.

• 29:22Nilay Patel?

  NPR is, like, taking over Twitter.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Wait, wait, don't tell me. You're going to see Star Wars.

• 29:26Nilay Patel?

  No!

• 29:27Speaker 02

  No!

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  You too? Burning my tote bag. Um, yeah, I don't know.

• 29:36Nilay Patel?

  I see the idea of NPR, just, like, doing non-stop viral marketing on Twitter.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  I mean, I'd be happy if they got a ad buy from Disney for Star Wars. Go for them.

• 29:47Nilay Patel?

  Good.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  It'd be great.

• 29:49Nilay Patel?

  Sam, hype check Star Wars. You have to actually hype check. You can't just ask us questions about what it's like to be old.

• 29:55Speaker 03

  Hype check Star Wars.

• 29:57Speaker 02

  He's a millennials, man.

• 30:01Speaker 03

  I'll see it when it comes out.

• 30:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah?

• 30:03Speaker 03

  I'll give it a chance, yeah.

• 30:04Nilay Patel?

  You're going to the theater?

• 30:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. J.J. Abrams, yeah. Huge Lost fan, so yeah.

• 30:06Nilay Patel?

  That's, I don't, those things are not connected. Also, Lost sucked at the end.

• 30:10Speaker 03

  I'm not even, I'm not even gonna begin to even think about talking about Lost.

• 30:14Nilay Patel?

  All right.

• 30:15Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 30:16Nilay Patel?

  Why? Because we're so unfocused with other topics?

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:19Speaker 02

  Guys, Disney movies is another one of our topics.

• 30:20Nilay Patel?

  Go ahead. Wait, we're really?

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Oh, the Disney movies anywhere. It seems like they actually did something that isn't horrible when it comes to getting your movies.

• 30:28Speaker 02

  I did have many movies. I think I like this app. There's a question mark. Is, it's the one that came with Frozen, right? And if you register some movies, you can watch them on the app? All these are question marks. I don't know why. It's like Disney Netflix, except you pay for every movie, which I guess kind of makes it sound crappy. Which is, like, kind of, it, like, I like this when I use it, because I can watch all of my Disney movies in one place. But then, when I stop and think about it, it's just Ultraviolet.

• 30:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's Ultraviolet.

• 30:57Speaker 02

  But with movies I actually care about.

• 30:59Speaker 01

  It's Ultraviolet through, that is partnered up with iTunes and Google Play, basically, and for Disney.

• 31:05Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  At least, like, basically, this looks complicated and annoying, but also, at least they're trying.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, no, it wasn't even that complicated when I used it, and they gave me Incredibles for free, and they're like, if you buy two movies, you get a stuffed animal, and I was like, you know me.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Are you kidding me?

• 31:20Speaker 02

  You know me.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's amazing.

• 31:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, so.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Buy me some movies.

• 31:23Nilay Patel?

  Let's quickly explain what.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Wait, what kind of stuffed animal?

• 31:26Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  I think it was a frozen, it was that snowman, and it was like, do you want to build the snowman? And I was like, yeah.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  If it's not Stitch, I'm not interested.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  Stitch is where it's at.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  Do you know Mahalo means family? I don't know if it's Mahalo.

• 31:40Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  Hmm, Ohana.

• 31:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it is.

• 31:42Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 31:42Nilay Patel?

  Do you think that my camera is picking up my loudsides?

• 31:45Speaker 02

  You don't like Lilo and Stitch?

• 31:47Speaker 01

  He would like, he would like you to actually explain how Disney movies anywhere actually works.

• 31:51Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, I'm saying, this is, they're trying to do the dream, which is you buy the, right now, you're, everything you buy makes you opt into some sort of silent, right? So if you buy an iOS device, you're like locked into the iTunes store, if you buy a Google device, you're locked into the Play Store. And so if you buy a movie for Apple, you can't switch to Android. This is the world in which we live.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  So it's interesting that Disney is able to do this, because Disney's like, we are the guarantor of this purchase, and we, like, if, Apple, you, you can trust us, they, they own this movie, let them watch it, and Google, you can trust us, they own this movie.

• 32:21Nilay Patel?

  Right, so they've built an app, I mean, this is a hack, this is a hacky hack, right? They've built an app that sits on top of iTunes and on top of Google Play, and it connects to both accounts, and it tells both services, hey, you bought one here, other service, you bought it here too, right? Which is crazy, like, that's the, that means, like, the world is, is falling apart.

• 32:40Speaker 02

  That's a nice thing.

• 32:41Nilay Patel?

  It's, it's, but it's weird that it's per studio, it's weird that, like.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  Sure, oh, well, everybody's gonna make a play for the money. I mean, it's, whenever there's a big thing going around, it's going to be like, we're the universal service, there's that period where everybody else tries to just fuck it up, and make it individual, I mean, it's gonna, it's what's happening with Apple Pay, we talked about this last week, I think, where it's like, oh, that's a big thing now, all of us should have our own, that'll be a real pleasure, and then eventually, it doesn't work, and you go to whatever the universal standard is.

• 33:09Nilay Patel?

  You know, the only reason I use Apple Pay is because it feels really flippant. Yeah, so I'm paying.

• 33:15Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 33:16Nilay Patel?

  That's the sound it makes.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  I like to think about how much money I'm spending, but that's just me.

• 33:22Nilay Patel?

  Cause you can do it in all sorts of places that you're not supposed to.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 33:25Nilay Patel?

  Like you can do it in cabs. That works and you're just like wave your phone at the cab like flippantly.

• 33:29Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Actually, I want to segue.

• 33:31Nilay Patel?

  Oh.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Ready?

• 33:33Speaker 02

  Go for it.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Think about what's the relation between Disney movies anywhere and Taylor Swift pulling out of Spotify?

• 33:40Nilay Patel?

  Oh.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  Money.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Yes, done.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  Always money.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Thanks for watching the Vergecast, everybody.

• 33:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, the Taylor Swift thing is actually like, if you're Taylor Swift, brilliant move.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  You get to do whatever you want.

• 33:55Nilay Patel?

  Well, I mean, it's just, it's just window. Taylor Swift pulling her albums off of Spotify is no different than the way every movie studio and Apple tricks me into buying stupid movies instead of renting them. Right? It's like, oh, that movie is finally here. Oh crap, it's not available for rent. Like it's available for rent, but almost exactly a week after I actually want to watch this movie.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:16Nilay Patel?

  I'm not going to wait a week and a half.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  And they always, they, there's some reason it's like 18, you're like, oh, 18, I'm not doing that. But sometimes they'll sneak it in at like 11 or 12.

• 34:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Crap.

• 34:27Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, it's, it's, so it's the number and it's never on a Saturday. So it's never like, oh, I'll watch that movie next Saturday. It's like, I'll watch that movie next month.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Tuesdays, new movies come out on Tuesdays. I know that's because I worked at Mr. Movies, the VHS rental store.

• 34:39Nilay Patel?

  Same hype check, VHS.

• 34:42Speaker 03

  Awesome. I grew up on VHS.

• 34:47Nilay Patel?

  Cool.

• 34:48Speaker 01

  Eli is super confused by hype check. It's not going the way you thought at all.

• 34:51Nilay Patel?

  No, not at all. Not at all.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  I like it because it's, his reaction is different every time. You don't know what you're gonna get.

• 34:59Nilay Patel?

  What is a hype check?

• 35:00Speaker 01

  He can't be, he can't be defined. He can't be pigeonholed. He can't be boxed in.

• 35:03Nilay Patel?

  Here's what I, and I realize now that I forgot to do something at the top of the show, of course.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 35:09Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I would like everyone watching this show or

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Listening to this podcast.

• 35:14Nilay Patel?

  However you're consuming this, go to the iTunes store, leave us an excellent review. And then in the description, instead of writing a review of the show, tell us what a hype check is. I think that's important. That's an important place for us to know.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 35:29Nilay Patel?

  Uh, that's, and I think in terms of just confusing the iTunes consumer, an important troll for us to troll.

• 35:35Speaker 03

  Help us shape this role.

• 35:36Nilay Patel?

  Is troll a verb or a noun?

• 35:38Speaker 01

  Both.

• 35:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, definitely both.

• 35:39Nilay Patel?

  It is a troll.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  Trolling.

• 35:41Nilay Patel?

  How does one perpetuate a troll?

• 35:43Speaker 01

  By trolling.

• 35:44Nilay Patel?

  So you troll a troll?

• 35:45Speaker 03

  You could definitely troll a troll, if you know how to troll.

• 35:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 35:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that sounds very confusing.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  You don't normally troll a troll. You trolls trolls troll.

• 35:53Speaker 02

  I troll a lot of trolls.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, well.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  Have you guys noticed Paul McCartney showing up in our, in our articles?

• 36:01Speaker 02

  Looking for it.

• 36:02Nilay Patel?

  Can I just say?

• 36:02Speaker 03

  I gotta ban that. We don't allow multiple accounts.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  Oh, no, no, it's not an account.

• 36:06Nilay Patel?

  The three celebrities that we have like a weird, a weird relationship with as like artists and creators and journalists are Paul McCartney, Don Cheadle, and Jemirah Quaid.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 36:20Nilay Patel?

  And I don't know why, like, that's who we fake. Like, we've irritated those fanbases the most. Just as people. Like, Chris Siggler.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  What, what did we, how do we irritate John, Don Cheadle's fanbase?

• 36:31Nilay Patel?

  Don Cheadle, years ago at Engadget.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:34Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I, there was just a picture, I ran a picture of Don Cheadle looking utterly confused at the original Microsoft Surface.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:42Nilay Patel?

  The big table.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  The giant one, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:44Speaker 03

  Oh, I remember that.

• 36:45Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and like, Microsoft like could, didn't know how to market, it's a big table. They didn't, like, no one could market this. It was the ultimate challenge. So they settled on was, we'll put it in casinos and have like actresses look at it.

• 36:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 36:58Nilay Patel?

  Right, so like, that was one of, they had an event at like a casino, and one of the pictures was just Don Cheadle just like looking confused. And I just wrote this line, like, no number of B-list celebrities will help some of the Microsoft.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  Ohhh.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 37:16Nilay Patel?

  Cheadle Nation pissed at me.

• 37:18Speaker 02

  True.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  With, with, yeah, justification.

• 37:21Nilay Patel?

  This is well before, uh, this is long ago.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  Was this pre or post Ocean's Eleven, Don Cheadle?

• 37:26Nilay Patel?

  Uh.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  Oh, it's definitely post. Ocean's Eleven was a long time ago. Definitely.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  You were objectively wrong.

• 37:31Nilay Patel?

  Why do I want to believe that Ocean's Eleven came out in 2011?

• 37:34Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 37:35Nilay Patel?

  I'm sure my mind is.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  It came out a long time ago.

• 37:38Nilay Patel?

  Sam is five years old.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Is that the one where he wore the?

• 37:42Speaker 03

  That was a good movie.

• 37:43Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 37:45Speaker 03

  The other ones, no.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  No one cares about those people.

• 37:48Nilay Patel?

  He has to save, he has to save B for bust for Snapchat. So that's why you're not getting that. Yeah, no, I hear. By the way, follow us on Snapchat, The Real Verge. Um, okay.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  This is the worst podcast ever.

• 38:00Nilay Patel?

  I, I.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  No, it's not.

• 38:01Nilay Patel?

  I.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Actually, as long as we're being surreal and insane.

• 38:04Nilay Patel?

  Sure.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  Let's talk about the Amazon Echo.

• 38:06Nilay Patel?

  Wait, we didn't.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 38:08Nilay Patel?

  I didn't finish the Jemirah Qui story.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 38:09Nilay Patel?

  And you have to finish your Paul McCartney story. And then we can talk about the Amazon Echo. Okay. Uh, so Chris wrote, he called Jemirah Qui a one-hit wonder last week.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  Not true.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Not true at all.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  He has two songs, Rich Chong's "Annie Can't Hee."

• 38:23Nilay Patel?

  Clear that this is, yes, anyway. It continues, like, a week later, rando Jemirah Qui fans are, like, finding him and yelling at him. And then you, what, you mean, you're just trolling?

• 38:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:35Nilay Patel?

  What's your troll?

• 38:36Speaker 02

  I'm, if I told you the troll, I'd ruin the troll.

• 38:39Nilay Patel?

  Fair.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  I'm giving you a clue.

• 38:40Nilay Patel?

  Fair.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  Take what you get.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Man, I would really like to be on the internet right now.

• 38:45Speaker 02

  Guys, before we get to Amazing Echo, can we finish one more thing of entertainment news?

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  Cause I just want to give a shout out.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  I do.

• 38:50Speaker 02

  Fast Seven, the trailer.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Meh.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  Is.

• 38:53Speaker 01

  Meh, it's meh.

• 38:54Speaker 02

  I almost said a very bad word. As somebody who is in the position to fire me.

• 39:02Speaker 02

  It was like, right there. And then I, like, grabbed it at the microphone, it's like, no, no, no, you gotta come back. You're a bad one. Uh, no, here's the thing. Fast and the, I'm not saying this ironically.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  Dead serious, because people think this is a joke when I say it, because they haven't seen the movies. Fast and the Furious is the best series of movies ever made.

• 39:23Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  And when I say series, I mean, six, six plus.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  How many movies does it take to become a series?

• 39:28Speaker 02

  Over, over six.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Over, oh, for sure.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  Well, six plus.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Six plus.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  Cause that would include Star Wars.

• 39:33Nilay Patel?

  That would include Star Wars, it would include, uh, the Bond movies.

• 39:36Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 39:36Speaker 01

  Uh, what else, what else?

• 39:38Speaker 03

  I don't know, I don't know if you could say that about the Bond movies.

• 39:40Nilay Patel?

  Huh?

• 39:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, definitely got in the Bond.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Well, that's, if you like, if you.

• 39:44Nilay Patel?

  Extreme rough patches.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  There is one, there is one okay towards bad Fast and the Furious movie. Fast and the Furious 2. Everything else is a four star film.

• 39:55Nilay Patel?

  Too Too Fast Too Furious.

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 39:57Nilay Patel?

  Legitimately one of the worst movies.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  But Three Fast Three Furious Tokyo Drift is great.

• 40:01Nilay Patel?

  Tokyo Drift, you know, in my personal rankings, uh, it's the original Fast and Furious and then Tokyo Drift. I believe Tokyo Drift is-

• 40:08Speaker 02

  Have you seen the new ones?

• 40:09Nilay Patel?

  High in the canon.

• 40:10Speaker 02

  You are.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  He reviewed Fast Five.

• 40:12Nilay Patel?

  I'm a dedicated Fast fan.

• 40:14Speaker 02

  Six and Five are...

• 40:16Speaker 01

  You know, I can't, I can't watch, I can't watch Six because The Rock is like literally disgusting with how much about, he's just-

• 40:24Speaker 02

  He's a beautiful man.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  He's terrifying and like just-

• 40:30Speaker 02

  I like, he looks great. He looks like safe.

• 40:32Nilay Patel?

  For the audio listener, like Dieter just like half flexed but then disgusted himself with how much he was flexing and then couldn't get any words out of his mouth.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  I don't know, man.

• 40:41Speaker 02

  I like it when, when like, uh, The Rock's muscles like start at the bottom of his earlobes and then it's like, it's a diagonal line towards the end of his shoulders.

• 40:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  Like there's no neck, it's just muscle.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's why I like that. CG, I'd be like, oh, this is awesome. This is the most amazing CG I've ever seen. But no, it's real. That is what that human being looks like.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  And I can't handle it.

• 41:02Nilay Patel?

  The back to back Dwayne Johnson pictures, right? Like-

• 41:06Speaker 02

  Earlier and later.

• 41:07Nilay Patel?

  As The Rock and then now is like The Rock.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:10Nilay Patel?

  And he's just a huge-

• 41:11Speaker 02

  He, oh wait, no, maybe that's Mark Wahlberg who wakes up at like four in the morning to eat.

• 41:15Nilay Patel?

  Fast Five was an amazing movie.

• 41:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Oh, you're gonna give your grand theory of Fast and Furious again?

• 41:21Nilay Patel?

  I mean, my grand theory of Fast and Furious is that Tokyo Drift is a completely underrated movie in that series.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 41:25Speaker 01

  I thought it was, I thought it was the odd ones were good and the even ones are bad.

• 41:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, yeah, no, that's basically it.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  Hmm, it's not a bad theory.

• 41:31Nilay Patel?

  The odd ones are really good. The, Six, Six is a disaster movie. Like, it's a good movie. It's better than Two. It clearly better than Two. Uh, it is more ambitious in terms of spectacle than Four, but it makes no sense.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  No, it makes all the sense. The problem is Six is-

• 41:50Nilay Patel?

  It makes all the sense.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  It's an end, it's, it's the end of an era movie and I think it puts the bow on a lot of the storylines and it's all about family and- Very sad, unfortunate, horrible thing that happens, obviously, in the making of, during the making of Seven, but it felt like Six was like the final movie, for me. Which is weird, because Three actually takes place after Six.

• 42:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, and that's why.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  So that's a whole other thing. But, that to me was like, I, I was in, the theater I was in may have just made it, but people did not stop shouting at the screen, or like crying with the movie, or like, it was, it was a like, religious experience, to be in a theater where like, everybody was on that page.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  So, how can you want to go from that to the meth that we saw in the Furious Seven trailer?

• 42:38Speaker 02

  I think it looks great, because, well, the only thing that bums me out about it, is I don't, I think guns-

• 42:42Speaker 01

  By the way, if you're listening live right now, tweet at Z Power, at Z P O W E R, and tell them that I just said the trailer was M E H.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  Oof, wow. Oof, um-

• 42:51Nilay Patel?

  Do the spelling I want on the internet.

• 42:54Speaker 02

  My beef is that, it's so great at using guns, or not guns, cars for all the action, and there's a lot of gunplay in this trailer.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  And that's disappointing, because it's so easy. Like, there are a billion movies I can see with gunplay. What I liked about these movies was they found an excuse to like, essentially do giant action sequences while just using cars.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:16Speaker 02

  The answer was always like, what if we did that thing they do in these types of action movies, but with cars instead? Like, the last one, well, Five is, what if we did Ocean's Eleven, but with cars?

• 43:24Nilay Patel?

  Guys, I have breaking news.

• 43:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was gonna, I was trying to segue, but-

• 43:27Nilay Patel?

  I have breaking, the turret.

• 43:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, the Toy Story thing.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Dude.

• 43:30Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  Hype check.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  Dude.

• 43:33Nilay Patel?

  You have one job, Sam.

• 43:34Speaker 03

  Hype check.

• 43:35Nilay Patel?

  That's it.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  Just hype check on repeat.

• 43:38Nilay Patel?

  You're a sampler that says the word hype check. Pixar is making Toy Story 4. That's happening.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  Great.

• 43:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, just milking it.

• 43:45Speaker 02

  Remember what I said about Disney? Can't wait for Cars 8.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Is it Pixar or is it Disney?

• 43:52Nilay Patel?

  I mean, in terms of-

• 43:53Speaker 01

  It's Pixar, right?

• 43:54Nilay Patel?

  It's Pixar.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  Okay, well, that's, no.

• 43:56Nilay Patel?

  But like-

• 43:57Speaker 01

  No, they're different.

• 43:58Nilay Patel?

  I, yes, yes, I'm aware, different, yes. But it's, it's John Lasseter at the top of it all.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:03Nilay Patel?

  Like, it's all his minions.

• 44:05Speaker 02

  And lately, Disney Animated Studio has actually been making the better movies.

• 44:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  Though I think this new one about emotions could probably be better.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  The, the robot, Robots, Big Six, or whatever?

• 44:14Speaker 02

  No, well, that's, that's, yeah, Disney Animation, and Frozen, and Wreck-It Ralph.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  Right. No, I don't, I don't have, I don't have high hopes for, for Big Six.

• 44:22Speaker 02

  Yeah?

• 44:23Speaker 01

  I don't know, I just have a feeling.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  Looks cute.

• 44:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's, yeah.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  It doesn't look like it's Frozen or Wreck-It Ralph to me.

• 44:28Speaker 02

  Sure, I mean-

• 44:29Speaker 01

  That's all I'm saying.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Hi, Marx.

• 44:31Nilay Patel?

  They just called it Toy Story Revolution.

• 44:38Nilay Patel?

  What else on our list?

• 44:39Speaker 02

  Do you want to talk Echo?

• 44:40Nilay Patel?

  We should talk about the Echo. I would say Echo is probably the most interesting news of the week.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Although, we're not gonna, we're not gonna make it to Microsoft, but let's just say, Microsoft, good frickin' job this week.

• 44:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Really cool stuff. That's it.

• 44:52Nilay Patel?

  What else, what else you got some notes? Do it, we'll do a notes segue and then we'll talk Echo.

• 44:56Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. I said, hmm, nothing really. No, and for Microsoft, I said, I chose Google Docs because it was free. And now I'm all too little, too late, Microsnore.

• 45:10Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 45:11Nilay Patel?

  What do you have for?

• 45:11Speaker 02

  But I actually liked some of that stuff. I don't know why I wrote that. For Echo, I wrote.

• 45:15Nilay Patel?

  No, what are you writing for Taylor Swift?

• 45:16Speaker 02

  For Taylor Swift, talked about this last week, you can take a nap here.

• 45:22Nilay Patel?

  Alright, fine. Alright, Echo.

• 45:24Speaker 02

  Amazing Echo. Oh, I spelled it wrong. Should have called it Echo with two Cs because Echo's goal was to bring peace to planet Earth. Tech could learn from dolphin. Buy one because I need a speaker. Tell them your, oh, tell them your cereal conspiracy. So I have a great idea for Amazon. They can send the checks to me. So cereal, everybody's eating it.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  Right?

• 45:49Nilay Patel?

  Hype check cereal. Sam, Sam.

• 45:54Speaker 03

  Cereal is good. I eat it for breakfast every single day of my life.

• 45:56Nilay Patel?

  Every single day of your life? You eat cereal for breakfast?

• 46:00Speaker 03

  Seriously, five days a week when I'm in the, every day I come to the office.

• 46:02Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so necessarily I'm missing two days a week. What do you eat the other two days?

• 46:08Speaker 03

  Usually Tompkins Square bagels.

• 46:10Nilay Patel?

  Okay, okay. So just definitionally.

• 46:13Speaker 03

  And then Sunday is brunch usually, yeah.

• 46:15Nilay Patel?

  Do you eat cereal at brunch?

• 46:17Speaker 03

  No, I'm saying like Monday through Friday is cereal, Saturday is bagels, and Sunday is brunch. That is my eating schedule.

• 46:23Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 46:23Nilay Patel?

  Every single day of your life.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Real quick, my cereal conspiracy. So everybody is listening to cereal, the podcast, they should be listening to it. It's absolutely incredible. It is incredible journalism and an exciting new form that is, I guess, kind of inspired by a very old form. Uh, but it's so popular. What they need if they're gonna have, uh, try to get you to put speakers in every room in your house is to be subsidizing cereal. So that I have to be listening to it all the time because I'm addicted to it. Kind of like Netflix, right? Like I want to have Netflix on everything all the time and just leave it on repeat. So if they either partnered with podcast companies, uh, or just made their own audio, like they already do with Amazon video, then I would want to have a speaker in my house.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Oh, so Amazon Studios should start like sponsoring podcasts.

• 47:12Speaker 02

  Or have an audio, or yeah, an audio wing that is free for Prime members. It's probably a stupid idea because video, uh, has not worked very well for Prime because their series haven't really caught on, even though there are some good ones.

• 47:25Speaker 01

  They're gonna get there.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  I hope they are. I think they will. Um, and I like that they've already done what they ordered a second season of Transparent, like it, it looks like they're actually showing confidence.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  I haven't watched a single Amazon Prime series.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  That's one you should start with. Um, yeah. Uh, but yeah, I, I, that was like kind of a dumb thing that I wrote, but then I, now I think about it, I think that'd be, it'd be good to have somebody out there. Now that cereal is like growing, growing, growing, who actually put some real money behind these shows. Um.

• 47:55Speaker 01

  I, I don't think that the, the, the guys behind This American Life and Cereal, the team, the group is hurting.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  Oh, I think they're doing fine. I don't think, I don't think, yeah, I don't think there are a lot of people out there who would get paid to do this.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  I think there are a few venues that would pay, people will pay people to podcast, but usually it's cheaper podcasting than a year of reporting.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  Uh, so yeah, I, I don't know. I think that'd be nice. I think it'd be great to have a company like that that could literally throw money or whatever they wanted to throw money at.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  At cereal.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, things like cereal.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  I mean, it's just funny that you've, we were like, here's this weird speaker that you can talk to and you're like, they should use it to fund podcasts.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 48:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, because then you'd buy it.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  Yeah. They should find other reasons to make me buy it other than that it's cereal. I mean, that's what I said in the article that I wrote today. Like it's a speaker, whatever your, the blunt thing is that you're selling, that's what people are gonna buy it for. Normal people, I, I, my mom works, owns her, uh, hair salon out in like the middle of the Midwest. And when, uh, I would used to work there during the summers and I still like will check in on some summers and hang out around the place and I'll talk to people who will come in about their smartphones and they all have iPhones. And no one has apps on it. Everyone has an iPhone. Nobody has downloaded an app.

• 49:09Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 49:10Speaker 02

  They just use the iPhone. And they're like, I can check my mail on it. And it's like, have you downloaded apps? I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about.

• 49:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I actually just spent like, yeah, a friend of mine has no zero apps on her phone.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  What?

• 49:21Nilay Patel?

  Yep.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  But that's who you, that's who you want to sell to.

• 49:23Nilay Patel?

  I asked her, I was like, we were, we were like, do you, what about seamless? Like, everybody, it's like, come on, seamless. She's like, yeah, why? What? No. It was, she's like, why wouldn't you just call the restaurant? Uh, and then, and then Becky went on an extended rant about how calling restaurants in New York City is extraordinarily frustrating.

• 49:40Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 49:40Nilay Patel?

  And then, and then she was still like, yeah, but you could just call the restaurant.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  I hear you, but what if you did what I said?

• 49:46Nilay Patel?

  She's like, what if you shut up? Like, that'd be cool, too.

• 49:50Nilay Patel?

  No, I hear you. So talk about Echo. Talk about what the product itself.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Oh, so it is a-

• 49:53Nilay Patel?

  Surprise, by the way, it's a total surprise, this Echo.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:56Nilay Patel?

  Just came out of nowhere.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  Hey, well, yeah. It's a, it's a speaker. It's not a Bluetooth speaker, it's a 360 degree speaker. It's got some over Twitter, whatever.

• 50:05Nilay Patel?

  It is a Bluetooth speaker.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  It's also Bluetooth, but it's not Bluetooth. When you say you hear Bluetooth speaker, you assume it has a battery and you could take it with you like a jam box.

• 50:12Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  This thing plugs into the wall and that's it.

• 50:14Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Uh, and it has microphones that use beamforming, which is really cool. Cause it can hear you, whatever, wherever you are, it'll, you don't have to yell at it. It can just detect your, your voice. And it basically has like Siri built into it. So you can ask it, how's the weather? How do you spell blah? Look this thing up on Wikipedia for me.

• 50:32Nilay Patel?

  It's all, it's Amazon, it's on Siri, it's Amazon.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Right, right, it's Amazon stuff. And then in addition to that, it like, it'll play your Amazon music. It'll play podcasts.

• 50:40Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I will say this-

• 50:41Speaker 01

  As a Bluetooth speaker.

• 50:42Nilay Patel?

  The video, they made one of the worst videos I've ever seen.

• 50:45Speaker 02

  It's creepy as hell, it's a horror commercial. Somebody should recut it to be a horror, like, trailer.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:50Speaker 02

  Cause it's watching everything you do while you're sleeping.

• 50:51Nilay Patel?

  Alert Verge video team.

• 50:55Nilay Patel?

  Do this idea.

• 50:56Speaker 02

  I think they got it.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Literally, literally good activity is happening behind us.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  We already know exactly where it's going.

• 51:07Nilay Patel?

  By the way, just in case you're wondering how, what it's, what it's like to work at The Verge.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:12Nilay Patel?

  We often issue editorial decisions by screaming, "Alert, Verge video team."

• 51:17Speaker 02

  Great.

• 51:18Nilay Patel?

  That's my music.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Kwame Opam, our news editor, he on the weekends in Slack will just type, "Dieter, I summon you." And like, my phone pops up with an alert and it's Kwame saying, "Dieter, I summon you." And you know what?

• 51:32Nilay Patel?

  It works.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  It works.

• 51:33Nilay Patel?

  Works every time. Yep.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 51:35Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna start doing that. Anyway, the video.

• 51:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:38Nilay Patel?

  It is, so the echo is really interesting. It's basically, here's what I think happened.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  It's, it's, it's 200 bucks. It's 100 bucks if you're a Prime member.

• 51:46Nilay Patel?

  Jeff Bezos was watching Iron Man and like, I, like, Tony starts walking in his house, talking to Jarvis, and Jeff Bezos is like, "What the fuck? I want that."

• 51:54Speaker 01

  No, it's been around since Star Trek, "Computer, blah, blah, blah, blah."

• 51:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, I mean, I yell, I mean, I used to have, like, my Mac's running, like, OS9. I would, like, set them up so you could yell "computer" at them and they would do something.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:06Nilay Patel?

  They never did anything.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 52:07Nilay Patel?

  That, that shit did not work. But I get it, yeah, "Computer, do something." You have a wake word, like, "Hype Beast."

• 52:14Speaker 02

  Hey.

• 52:14Nilay Patel?

  Yep, every time.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  You only get, there's only, there's only two wake words, either "Amazon" or "Alexa."

• 52:19Speaker 02

  I thought you could set your own.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  No, apparently not.

• 52:22Nilay Patel?

  It's strange that they've picked Alexa.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  What happens if you have a daughter named Alexa?

• 52:25Speaker 01

  I know why they picked Alexa.

• 52:26Nilay Patel?

  Why's that?

• 52:26Speaker 01

  I don't know if...

• 52:28Speaker 02

  They own Alexa.com?

• 52:29Speaker 01

  David might want to save it for a story.

• 52:31Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  I don't know if I can tell you. It's, it's a very interesting, though.

• 52:34Speaker 02

  But what happens if you're...

• 52:35Speaker 01

  Should I just say it?

• 52:36Speaker 02

  If your name is Alexa?

• 52:37Speaker 01

  Uh, it's an homage to the Library of Alexandria.

• 52:40Nilay Patel?

  Oh, well, there you go. That's something.

• 52:43Speaker 02

  Did everybody get so bored that they all checked their phones?

• 52:48Speaker 02

  I have to go, I gotta catch a train, and here you are, oh, we'll just kind of wait for the show then.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  If the speaker is good, having a good $100 speaker sitting in my kitchen.

• 52:57Speaker 02

  Oh, hell yeah.

• 52:57Nilay Patel?

  That you plug in, it doesn't need a battery, that you can just talk to whenever and be like, "Alex," like, that thing...

• 53:01Speaker 02

  Play cereal.

• 53:02Nilay Patel?

  That thing where, um, like, I don't know, like, I cook a lot, so like, I'm always like, setting timers on Siri. I'm always like, doing conver, I do conversions on Siri, which is like, the most trite thing you can do with Siri, but it's actually super useful.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:14Nilay Patel?

  The idea that you have a speaker that's like, playing music and you can just... Have it happen is very Jarvis-y and cool. Yeah, well, I don't use Siri or Google now that much. I don't talk to them that much because it's annoying because you're like, oh, let me pull up my phone. You know, I do. I do it set timers and that's basically it. But to just like talk out loud and have that stuff happen. Yeah.

• 53:33Speaker 02

  It's cool.

• 53:34Nilay Patel?

  Cool. I do it.

• 53:35Speaker 02

  I liked doing it with Kinect before the Kinect just became.

• 53:38Nilay Patel?

  The Kinect is not good.

• 53:40Speaker 02

  I finally.

• 53:40Nilay Patel?

  I unplugged it from my Xbox.

• 53:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I finally did it because we were watching the World Series and it kept seeing our hands. We were like, yay. And I was like, if this changes in the middle of the World Series, I will never.

• 53:51Nilay Patel?

  You're the only person who still has their TV plugged into the Xbox. What are you doing?

• 53:55Speaker 02

  Not according to them. You were in.

• 53:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 53:59Speaker 02

  There was a time where I was told by someone at Microsoft that, no, no, no, I am wrong. Like 99% of people have Kinect.

• 54:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 54:08Speaker 02

  Plugging their TV.

• 54:09Nilay Patel?

  That person is gone now.

• 54:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:13Speaker 02

  That was a fun meeting.

• 54:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that was it. Wow. Yep. That didn't, that didn't last for them. It's cool.

• 54:21Speaker 03

  Neil, like, can I hype check Echo?

• 54:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 54:25Speaker 03

  First of all, I want to say, I want to say that Amazon knows how to price things like 200 bucks.

• 54:30Nilay Patel?

  Except for the Fire Phone.

• 54:31Speaker 03

  Except for the Fire Phone, which was a failure.

• 54:35Speaker 03

  For Prime members, which a lot of people are, it's 100 bucks, right? I'm probably going to buy that because I want a speaker in my bathroom while I'm taking a shower. And the idea of being able to just shout things like, I like.

• 54:49Nilay Patel?

  I go in the shower. I'm like, so am I clean?

• 54:53Nilay Patel?

  What do I do next?

• 54:54Speaker 03

  I backed a Bluetooth, a Bluetooth water resistant speaker on Kickstarter and who the hell knows when that's going to come.

• 55:02Nilay Patel?

  You know, you can just buy, like, you don't have to wait for some Kickstarter dude to like figure that out, right?

• 55:06Speaker 03

  The Bluetooth. Oh, I mean, it was.

• 55:08Nilay Patel?

  Waterproof, like a waterproof Bluetooth speaker.

• 55:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I felt like I was doing it.

• 55:12Nilay Patel?

  You can literally buy those and like shop like bodegas in Menlo.

• 55:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, but this one, it was like, is like good, apparently, like to sound and all.

• 55:18Speaker 02

  He promised.

• 55:19Speaker 03

  The guy said in the video.

• 55:21Nilay Patel?

  This Kickstarter guy is like, this is the best audio you've ever heard in your shower.

• 55:23Speaker 03

  The hype check situation is, is that Amazon knows how to.

• 55:28Nilay Patel?

  This is what I thought hype check would be.

• 55:30Speaker 03

  Amazon knows how to price things. I'm going to buy one and they are sort of experimenting.

• 55:36Nilay Patel?

  We're all gonna buy them. I'm gonna buy two. Yeah, I mean, like, right, because Chris was saying like. The bathroom idea is great, by the way. That's why I'm buying two. Thanks a lot. Uh, you're, and well, yeah, I have a Sonos in my bathroom. It's the most complicated.

• 55:48Speaker 03

  Right. And you can't shout Alexa, do play whatever. Does it, does it hook up to Spotify?

• 55:54Nilay Patel?

  No, you're, it'll be through your phone. It'll be Amazon's music service.

• 55:57Speaker 03

  Uh, so it looks like I have to.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  Well, and also iHeart Radio and something, and they're gonna let more do stuff.

• 56:04Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 56:05Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I will, I will say this, like, uh, um, the, that situation where you like have speakers and you have to like monkey with a phone to just play music.

• 56:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:14Nilay Patel?

  It's funny how much more convenient like an FM radio was for like the last thirty years.

• 56:19Speaker 03

  True. Right. Turn it on and you're good.

• 56:21Nilay Patel?

  And like things happen.

• 56:22Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 56:22Nilay Patel?

  And now it's like, let me monkey with this app that's bad.

• 56:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:25Nilay Patel?

  And find a playlist and then hope my wifi works.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  I wanna listen to the morning news summary when I'm in the bathroom.

• 56:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  And it, I'm like, get my phone out. Oh, podcast. It used to be just turn on the radio.

• 56:37Nilay Patel?

  Yep. But I, the, the video, so the video that Amazon.

• 56:42Speaker 03

  I've checked the fifties.

• 56:46Speaker 03

  I was negative for it.

• 56:47Nilay Patel?

  This video, everyone should go watch it in terror.

• 56:51Speaker 03

  It is so bad.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  You know what the problem is with that video?

• 56:53Nilay Patel?

  The first thing they do with it is like the little boy in like the world's most annoying family walks through and says, Alexa, play rock music. And then it like, just some like butt rock emerges from the speaker.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like.

• 57:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's like, dude, you're gonna grow up. You're gonna drive a white Camaro. Like, your whole life is sucks. Like, straight, like, and the whole family's just like, yeah.

• 57:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:24Nilay Patel?

  Rock music. And it's like, why would you, why?

• 57:27Speaker 03

  The problem with that video.

• 57:29Nilay Patel?

  Technology, all of the like, the, the, the, the research and development that's gone into, into speech recognition, all of the like, internet infrastructure that is required to support this thing. Play rock music. And it's just, it's everything. It's the whole.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  Commercials are really cheesy.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Problem with that commercial. It is narrated by a child who is, what, older than five? The idea that a child older than five wouldn't be jaded.

• 57:58Speaker 03

  Doesn't. He doesn't.

• 57:59Nilay Patel?

  No, it's like, and like the dad comes home, he's like, I bought this speaker and it plugs in. And like, how do you use it? And he's like, you don't. It's just like, you're the worst dad.

• 58:08Speaker 03

  No, he like says something and then the kid's like, you read that off the box. And he goes, yeah, I did. Like.

• 58:15Nilay Patel?

  Here's, here's what, here's what I know. I have, I have many fears about having a child. It's a, it's an anxiety ridden situation for me as a person, uh, you know, when.

• 58:27Speaker 03

  Little Neil eyes are running around.

• 58:29Nilay Patel?

  Yes. When my army of bastards finally takes to the streets.

• 58:32Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 58:34Nilay Patel?

  That's.

• 58:35Speaker 03

  Dieter is now resting his head on a microphone and dear shame.

• 58:39Nilay Patel?

  I'm worried that, you know, I'll be like an embarrassing father. And this video is like a, a window into like the worst.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  Worry about that. You have to embrace it. There's no other way.

• 58:51Nilay Patel?

  No, because you don't have to go that far to your Camaro talkie speaker. That plays rock music. I'm really mad.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  There's a fight.

• 59:00Speaker 01

  There's a huge difference between being an awkward dad and buying a Camaro. Like, just because you're not cool, doesn't mean that you're buying a Camaro.

• 59:08Nilay Patel?

  There's a big difference between being an awkward dad.

• 59:10Speaker 02

  Listen, to wrap this up, I'm gonna show everyone in this room, we will not be cool.

• 59:16Speaker 02

  No chance. We weren't cool as kids. We're not cool now.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  I like, I wanna have kids just so that when I make dad jokes on Twitter, that I'm like, being honest about it.

• 59:25Speaker 02

  Oh, that's fair.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  That's all. That's the only reason.

• 59:27Nilay Patel?

  All right. That, that was our show.

• 59:30Speaker 01

  We're sorry.

• 59:31Nilay Patel?

  We didn't talk about much. Uh, do you have, do you have another note here? What we got?

• 59:37Speaker 02

  Uh, I don't care about will I am?

• 59:41Nilay Patel?

  I played with the Pulse Band. Dan Seifert, uh, bless his heart, is often very negative about things. But he was like, this is the worst product I've ever touched. And I went and played with it when, during his meeting. Absolutely right about that. It is hot garbage. It's just, why did you?

• 59:59Speaker 03

  Is it a dumpster fire?

• 1:00:00Nilay Patel?

  No, it's, it's just hot.

• 1:00:02Speaker 03

  It's hot garbage. Okay.

• 1:00:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:03Speaker 03

  Pipe check, hot garbage.

• 1:00:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Pipe check. Uh, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's not good. It has a little keyboard, like the screen has a little keyboard on it. And to type on it, you tap on the letter and the letter zooms up and you confirm the tap. What are you pointing at?

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  I have to go.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:00:18Speaker 02

  I have to get on a train and you want to talk to me about will I am's bullshit?

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Go.

• 1:00:22Speaker 02

  This is every day of my life.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  You should just go right now because it's gonna take me like 20 minutes.

• 1:00:26Speaker 02

  People don't know about that.

• 1:00:27Nilay Patel?

  Look, that was our show, for whatever it's worth. I'm glad that you survived this time with us.

• 1:00:33Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:00:33Nilay Patel?

  I'm trying to end on like a spiritual hopeful.

• 1:00:36Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:00:36Nilay Patel?

  Uh.

• 1:00:37Speaker 02

  Do you need help?

• 1:00:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:38Speaker 02

  Um, don't miss the bus.

• 1:00:42Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  You want to get to school on time.

• 1:00:44Nilay Patel?

  That's not help. That's just other words.

• 1:00:47Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:00:49Nilay Patel?

  That was the least helpful assistance anyone's ever given.

• 1:00:52Speaker 02

  That was more guidance than you have given in this entire fucking podcast.

• 1:00:58Nilay Patel?

  All right. Uh, do some icing stuff, please.

• 1:01:01Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:01:01Nilay Patel?

  Tweet at Sam. Uh, you can talk to us on our comments. You can follow The Real Verge on Snapchat.

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:01:07Nilay Patel?

  Uh, you can go on Twitter and do Twitter stuff.

• 1:01:10Speaker 03

  Also on Instagram.

• 1:01:12Nilay Patel?

  You can hit us on Instagram.

• 1:01:12Speaker 03

  At Verge.

• 1:01:13Nilay Patel?

  At Verge. You can go on our Facebook page. There are many-

• 1:01:16Speaker 03

  We hit a million.

• 1:01:16Nilay Patel?

  We hit a million likes on Facebook. Sam's very happy about that. Um, big things are afoot for The Verge. Lots of new people incoming, lots of awesome team members starting, uh, and it's great to be here and have these conversations. Hopeful.

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  You know what? Uh, make a, make a review on iTunes. It can be, it can be the beef or bust. It can be anything.

• 1:01:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  And then take a screen cap of it and send it to me and I'll give you a personal gif.

• 1:01:38Nilay Patel?

  Ooh.

• 1:01:38Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 1:01:39Nilay Patel?

  Personal gif.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  If there were like 20 reviews of The Vergecast on iTunes-

• 1:01:43Nilay Patel?

  That were just explaining.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  That just said beef.

• 1:01:45Nilay Patel?

  Just explain. That'd be good.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:47Nilay Patel?

  Here's what I want to see. I want to see one set that's just explanations of what a hype check should be because we clearly-

• 1:01:52Speaker 03

  That too. We need that.

• 1:01:53Nilay Patel?

  We need ideas.

• 1:01:54Speaker 01

  That's much we.

• 1:01:57Nilay Patel?

  All right. That was Vergecast, everybody. Hype check. Vergecast.

• 1:02:01Speaker 03

  Confirmed hype.