Galaxy Note 7s don’t explode, they sizzle

This week on Vergecast, we have the exclusive interview with our tech and transportation reporter Jordan Golson, who has been reporting nonstop on the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 debacle. Nilay, Lauren, and Paul welcome Jordan to the show to talk about the recent events regarding Samsung, as well as what it means for competitors and the tech ecosystem. 02:42 - Samsung recall 22:48 - Masterclass ad 27:07 - Google Pixel 36:44 - iOS10 37:12 - Samsung vs. Apple 50:15 - Graphicstock ad 51:24 - Ashley’s weekly segment “A Genuine Gadget Connection” 55:26 - Amazon Unlimited Music and the various tech ecosystems Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hello.

• 0:01Nilay Patel?

  You want to start? Just go for it.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  No, I just.

• 0:03Speaker 02

  Please, let Lauren start it.

• 0:04Nilay Patel?

  All right, you start it. Go ahead, Lauren.

• 0:07Speaker 00

  Hello.

• 0:08Nilay Patel?

  Is that your impression of my hello?

• 0:10Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 0:11Nilay Patel?

  Hello. I don't know. What else do you say?

• 0:13Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 0:13Nilay Patel?

  How do people start podcasts?

• 0:15Speaker 02

  Greetings, fellow travelers.

• 0:22Nilay Patel?

  Greetings, fellow travelers. This is The Vergecast, a podcast from The Verge, where we cover technology and feelings, or feelings about technology, whether that technology literally burns us, causing us to have the feeling of great pain.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  Pain is a feeling, as we're discovering.

• 0:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, pain is a real feeling. Anyway, I'm Neel Patel. Paul Miller's here.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 0:46Nilay Patel?

  Lauren Good is here in studio.

• 0:48Speaker 00

  Hello.

• 0:49Nilay Patel?

  Which is always a delight.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  Hello.

• 0:53Nilay Patel?

  And I believe, first ever appearance on The Vergecast, Jordan Golson is here.

• 0:58Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 1:01Nilay Patel?

  How did the word hello become a troll?

• 1:03Speaker 03

  Scissor vodka, Cut Through the Night.

• 1:04Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah. And Jordan.

• 1:06Speaker 03

  I've been waiting a year to say that.

• 1:07Nilay Patel?

  Cut Through the Night. Jordan is here. That's, in case you didn't know, that's a vodka brand that I made up. One day, I will, I will own. I actually had breakfast with a friend of mine this morning, and he spent a lot of time trying to convince me to build a still in my backyard. Like, more time than you would expect. It went from, it wasn't like, hey, you should, you know, I have this great idea we should start a still. Ha, ha, move on to the next topic.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  He was walking you through it.

• 1:28Nilay Patel?

  It was like a detailed, he's like, I think you should buy a pre-made kit. You know, I don't think you should weld copper on your own, but here's what you would do. I mean, it was detailed.

• 1:36Speaker 00

  Huh.

• 1:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I think I'm gonna do it.

• 1:37Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:38Nilay Patel?

  If you are a still manufacturer, get at me.

• 1:41Speaker 02

  If I was drinking scissor vodka, I'd think to myself, I bet this was made from a pre-made kit. I don't think Neel I did any welding

• 1:50Speaker 02

  to achieve this vodka.

• 1:51Nilay Patel?

  I hate these pre-made kit vodkas.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  Well, yesterday, we shot a video, a review, review video at a brewery in downtown Manhattan. And Will Joel and I, I guess we have someone on staff named Billy Joel, decided that The Verge should start a brewery.

• 2:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 2:08Speaker 00

  And we'd call it Virgin Weisen or something like that. Virgin Heisen, Virgin Weisen.

• 2:12Nilay Patel?

  Virgin Weisen.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  And the steins would be shaped like Vs. With a little handle on the side.

• 2:17Nilay Patel?

  Well, you know, we are-

• 2:17Speaker 03

  You're gonna add that to the merch plan.

• 2:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we are refreshing the brand. There's supposed to be a merch store at Ross Miller. If you're listening to this, know that I'm waiting for that merch store. If you're not Ross Miller, go ahead and tweet at him. He's at Ono Roscoe. Ask him where your t-shirt is, because that's his responsibility. Say, "Where's the merch?" Where's the merch? We need a button that lets you auto-tweet while you listen to the podcast. @OnoRoscoe, where's the merch? That's good. Ross, I'm not sorry. Give me a t-shirt. Anyway, tons going on, but really just one thing going on. It was not, I would say it's not a huge week of news. I was looking over everything that happened this week. Really, just the one story jumped out, and that's why Jordan is here. Jordan has been heroically owning this beat for a few weeks now. If you read the site, you know, Jordan usually is one of our transportation reporters.

• 3:04Nilay Patel?

  He writes a lot about the future of transportation and cars and fun things. But a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 blew up on a plane, so Jordan got the story. Jordan, I'm gonna dish some of your backstory. Jordan used to write for MacRumors and Valleywag, so tech reporter extraordinaire. And then just decided that he would own the Note story. Jordan, you wanna walk us through what happened? Because it's pretty bad.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, you know, if you go way back, the phone, the Note 7 was released, and then they started catching fire. And they were recalled. Okay, that's all well and good. Everyone's familiar with that. Then they issued new phones that they said were not broken, and it turned out they were broken. And a couple of weeks after they started getting released, this guy was getting on his Southwest Airlines flight and said, he told me, because I spoke to him on the phone, that they were giving their pre-flight safety briefing. And they said, "Okay, everyone with a Galaxy Note 7, please turn off your phone." And he said, "Oh, jeez, you know, this is silly. This is ridiculous. You know, mine's the recalled one. It's safe." Turns it off, puts it in his pocket, and it catches fire in his pocket,

• 4:08Speaker 03

  which can be alarming when you're on an airplane and your electronics is catching fire. So, that was not good.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  And then how did you get in touch with him?

• 4:16Speaker 03

  And so what happened was USA Today and some local news stations in Louisville, Kentucky, said, "Oh, you know, Samsung phone catches fire on Southwest Airlines flight." And we were sort of, "Oh geez, I wonder what this was. It must have been an old one that didn't replace." And I found the Louisville, I believe it's the Courier-Journal is their local daily newspaper. And they had an article with the guy's wife, I believe his name is Brian Green. And his wife said, "Oh, by the way, this was a replacement phone." And they had buried it in the seventh or eighth paragraph, because they didn't really realize the significance of this. And I saw it and was like, "Holy shit, this is huge news." And managed to track down the guy. I started Googling him and I found the company that he works for.

• 5:00Speaker 03

  And then I tracked down his email address and emailed him and I said, "Hey, can you call me?" Which I was a little concerned about, because his phone had just caught fire, so how was he gonna call me?

• 5:09Nilay Patel?

  That's a real problem.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  That's legit. I was like, "Well, I'll try anyway." And luckily, he had gone from the airport to the AT&T store to buy another phone, which was an iPhone 7.

• 5:20Nilay Patel?

  Of course.

• 5:21Speaker 03

  And he called me on it and was like, "Yeah, my phone just caught fire." And he was half thrilled to be alive and half really irritated at Samsung.

• 5:29Speaker 02

  Aside from the fact that fire is dangerous and explosions and heat are dangerous to humans.

• 5:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  The smoke from this, like, in a confined space is also

• 5:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  pretty scary.

• 5:42Nilay Patel?

  It's real bad.

• 5:43Speaker 02

  There's this video of somebody passing out. Like, this is the first video we have of one of these exploding. This lady walks into the living room, holding a smoking Note 7, sets it down, finally. I don't know why she held this for so long. Starts to walk away and then like passes out on the couch.

• 6:00Speaker 00

  Is it toxic, the smoke?

• 6:02Speaker 02

  I'm guessing.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  It's bad smoke. You know, it's a battery overheating. It's this nasty electrical smoke. You don't want to breathe it in.

• 6:09Speaker 02

  It's like, the chemicals from the battery are what's smoking?

• 6:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  The bad chemicals.

• 6:14Nilay Patel?

  The bad chemicals of battery. Angela Chen, one of our sound supporters, did a whole video on YouTube that you should watch about why these batteries explode. Basically, they're little bombs.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:22Nilay Patel?

  And we release their energy slowly to power our screens. Which is great, except for the bomb part.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  When you release it fast.

• 6:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 6:30Nilay Patel?

  Anyhow, so, Jordan, that was the first one. And we said, "Oh no, this is bad, it's a replacement." And then... If you were reading the site over the past week, to me, this is like an old school move that we made where we just did 100 updates. We just wrote 100 stories about every little iterative development. We don't do that as much anymore. There was a time when that was like our stock in trade. Like, I think of that as like classic aughts blogging, right? It happened again. Here's another headline and we fire them off in the ether. We don't, you know, it doesn't work anymore. It doesn't feel great anymore, always, just because of how we distribute things on Twitter and Facebook. You don't read it at Blogroll, but for this story, it just seemed to make perfect sense. Like, there's a build here and every one of

• 7:14Nilay Patel?

  these things that goes off again is actually its own story because it compounds the original story. So Jordan, you wrote one of these stories, like, you literally pulled over in your car on a New Mexico highway to write one of the, I mean, you just went at it all weekend. You want to walk us through all the ones that you did?

• 7:30Speaker 03

  So, it's starting back and I'm going back here because there are so many stories. I'm clicking through all of them. But basically, the first day, there were two stories. There was this plane, or a Note 7 catches fire on a plane. And that was bad. And then the one just after that was the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which is the US federal regulator that oversees recalls and dangerous products and things like that, announced that they were opening an investigation, which was about five hours later, which is a pretty good turnaround for them. And so that was the two the first day. And then we said, okay, well, maybe this, this story is, has run its course and they'll look into it and it won't be a replacement phone. And that's sort of what I hoped it was because, you know, otherwise, if all these replacement phones are catching fire, that's no good.

• 8:15Speaker 00

  And it was already recalled at this point?

• 8:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so that-

• 8:18Speaker 00

  It was already, because the recall happened September 2nd, right? Like, very early September. So this is all post-recall.

• 8:24Nilay Patel?

  Right. So we should zoom out. So the big news of the week is that there was the original recall in September. And then they expanded the recall program this week to cover even the replacement phones. And then Samsung and the carriers are like, just bring all the phones back. Samsung is giving people $100 credit on their cell bill. If they get another Samsung phone, you get $25 if you go to another brand, which is just the worst. And Note 7 production is halted. I mean, the Note is dead, right? I mean, that's-

• 8:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. So there were, there were two batches of Notes. There's the original batch, which had a Samsung battery in it, ironically. And they caught fire. And then they said, okay, these phones are bad. We're going to recall them. And then they said, okay, now we have new Note 7s that are replacement Note 7s with batteries from a different company. And they said, over and over again, these are fine, they're totally safe, we're completely confident that these are safe, the problem is fixed. And then those phones started catching fire.

• 9:17Nilay Patel?

  Right. And so you covered, I would say, six of those?

• 9:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, there were five or six, and then I think they said there were 23 total, because not everybody ran to The Verge. I don't know why they didn't come tell me. Several people did. So we had one the next day that I think was from a local news outlet, and then I had two people email me. One was a guy in Virginia who emailed me and said, "At 5:45 this morning, my phone caught fire on my nightstand. Here are pictures of it."

• 9:46Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  And so basically, he woke up, flipped out, took pictures of it, and then emailed us, which was great. So if you have something crazy technological happen, email The Verge.

• 9:56Nilay Patel?

  Absolutely. That's exactly what she did.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  And then we had another person, the same thing. Actually, no, I had a woman, she tracked me down on Facebook. And I don't know how she found me on Facebook, if she went to The Verge and then clicked on me, or if my link got shared, I don't know. But she messaged me on Facebook. And so I messaged her back, and she said, "Oh, call this number, we can explain it." And it had caught fire on their table while they were having lunch at a restaurant outside in Texas.

• 10:21Nilay Patel?

  I mean, that's ridiculous.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  It was just sitting on the table and burst into flames. And they were very upset, too.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  What kind of sense are you getting from these people you've been speaking to about their exploding Notes? Like, are people really frustrated? Do you think people are going to trust Samsung again?

• 10:35Speaker 03

  The word I would use is betrayed.

• 10:37Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 10:37Speaker 03

  Samsung said, and all of these people, so, you know, if you're buying a Note 7, and it has not been out very long, and all of the folks that I talked to were very much early adopters, they were very enthusiastic about this phone, they thought it was great, they read our reviews, and, okay, the first one comes out, they had a problem, we'll recall it, okay, that's annoying, but it's okay. Now they got this new phone, Samsung, they say Samsung lied, Samsung betrayed us, whatever you want to say, most folks are really unhappy. One person I talked to said, "I'm just gonna get an S7 and it'll be fine." And the other couple of folks I talked to were like, "Forget it. Do I just go buy an iPhone now?" You know, "I'm done."

• 11:13Nilay Patel?

  Well, I want to talk about this a little later. I mean, the Pixel's out in the world. I mean, I think that's like a, that's a thing. It's gonna be a huge problem for Samsung. But let's stay on the, just a note for a little bit longer because this story just seems to have gotten away from Samsung. And the more that it is revealed, it's not that the story got away from Samsung, it's that the situation got away from Samsung. So they don't know why, they don't really know why the first one was exploding. They assumed it was a bad battery. They switched it from their own supplier, a Samsung battery, a Samsung subsidiary, to another company. Those phones started going. There was a report

• 11:53Nilay Patel?

  in the New York Times that basically said, or claimed that Samsung internally is unable to replicate this problem. So they don't really know what's wrong with the phones.

• 12:03Speaker 03

  They still don't know. Even today.

• 12:04Speaker 02

  And then maybe they were too quick to blame the batteries.

• 12:06Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  Which means there could be something with like, well, what would it be? The quick charging?

• 12:12Nilay Patel?

  Right. So there's like a million things, right? Who knows? Like, we are left to like irresponsibly speculate.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  I saw a rumor that, that people thought that the charge, the firmware was charging the battery at too high a voltage.

• 12:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 12:26Speaker 03

  That's a conspiracy theory. And so, "Oh, it's not a battery problem at all. It's a firmware problem."

• 12:30Speaker 00

  It's a firmware issue. That's interesting.

• 12:31Speaker 03

  I mean, who knows?

• 12:32Speaker 00

  I think Angela Shin reported for us, Sam Angela, who did this great video on, are YouTube or Facebook?

• 12:39Nilay Patel?

  YouTube.

• 12:39Speaker 00

  Facebook. YouTube, that you should check out.

• 12:41Nilay Patel?

  That's probably everywhere.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, check that out. But she had written a report, I mean, back last month, and quoted, you know, battery experts and one who suggested that things can get dicey when the anode touches the cathode in the battery and there's supposed to be separators there. And if the manufacturer isn't handling the separator properly, then something bad could happen. Like, there's all kinds of like scientific...

• 13:02Nilay Patel?

  I saw a random X-ray photo of battery that's like, the pins are bent. Like, literally everyone is assuming everything. Like, maybe they put in USB-C wrong.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  Well, but, but that's the thing is like, if this is so mysterious, and we've had a couple notable happenings of battery explosions. The hoverboards?

• 13:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:21Speaker 02

  And the Note 7. And then like before that, like the biggest one I can remember is like Dell batteries.

• 13:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, the Sony batteries.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  Like the years ago. So like, we, we use millions of devices all the time that have batteries in them, and they don't explode very often.

• 13:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  So should we just-

• 13:38Speaker 03

  Can I interrupt with a pet peeve here?

• 13:39Speaker 02

  Yes, please.

• 13:40Speaker 03

  They're not really exploding.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 13:43Speaker 03

  When you think of exploding, you think kablooey.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  But it's more of like a sizzle.

• 13:48Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 13:49Speaker 03

  And then the, the phone itself gets really hot and it sort of expands and, and bad things and smoke pours out. But it's not like-

• 13:55Speaker 02

  It's not a stick of dynamite.

• 13:57Speaker 03

  Where stuff goes everywhere. Yeah. So, you know, calling it exploding is a bit of a misnomer.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  I think you just named Samsung's next phone line for them, which is the Samsung Sizzler.

• 14:05Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 14:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. There you go.

• 14:07Nilay Patel?

  I was gonna go kablooey.

• 14:09Speaker 03

  The Samsung kablooey.

• 14:10Nilay Patel?

  It comes in really red and kablooey.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  It looks like there's a lot of pressure inside, though.

• 14:15Nilay Patel?

  I can't believe I just laughed at my answer.

• 14:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, the battery expands a little bit. And if you've seen batteries that fail, it sort of bubbles up and it expands a bit. Um, like, you know, bread that's rising or something. I don't even know.

• 14:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but they get really hot. The one on the plane burned through the carpet and down to the metal of the flame body. Which is insane. So Samsung doesn't know what's wrong. They also, Jordan, I'm interested in your take on this. It seems like they mishandled all of the language around what to do, when to do it. Um, I got an email from somebody that was like, I tried to return my note. Here's the email I got from Samsung. The email was gibberish. I got what Samsung was trying to communicate, which was go to this website and push this button. We'll send you a box. You can send your phone back. But it was like 400 pages of what appeared to have gone through at least two rounds of translation, like machine translation. So Samsung is not communicating with its customers correctly.

• 15:04Nilay Patel?

  They didn't do the official recall. Like, they didn't use the word recall for a long time. They said they were exchanging it. Now it's an official recall. They didn't stop making the phones. Now they've stopped making the phones. And as far as I can tell, they haven't done a lot of, like, big, like, announcements, right? They're, they're sort of trickling this information out.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  One thing that's missing, I think, they haven't said, I'm sorry.

• 15:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 15:28Speaker 03

  They, they-

• 15:29Nilay Patel?

  It's ridiculous.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  We're really sorry this happened. You know, it's all- You know, "Oh, we're taking the matter seriously and we're investigating and blah, blah, blah." But, you know, they haven't had, you know, where's the CEO coming out and saying, "We made a mistake. I'm very sorry."

• 15:43Speaker 00

  Well, Jordan, love means never having to say you're sorry. And clearly Samsung loves its customers, so...

• 15:50Speaker 03

  Well, I have an iPhone and I think Tim Cook loves me, so...

• 15:54Nilay Patel?

  So what's your, I mean, you've been on the beat. You've talked to a bunch of people with the phones. At one point over the weekend, Jordan and I were just like messaging back and forth. It was actually hard to get ahold of Samsung, which, not to get all inside baseball, but if there's one, if you're a company and there's one reporter who's just kicking your ass every 30 minutes for two days, you should probably talk to that reporter, but we couldn't get ahold of Samsung at all. Like, they're just nowhere. What's your sense now of the situation, Jordan?

• 16:20Speaker 03

  Uh, I mean, they're, because the recall is in place and they've worked with the CPSC, which is the regulator, to come out with the recall. I think that procedure is in place and they've been pretty clear about, "Okay, go back to wherever you bought the phone. Bring it back. They'll give you a credit." Because unlike Apple, which has Apple stores everywhere, if you have a problem with your iPhone, you can go into the Apple Store and speak with an Apple employee about it. But if you have a Samsung phone, you can't do that. You can go to their website and you can, you know, go to Twitter or whatever, but if you have a problem with your phone, you go back to AT&T, or Best Buy, or Verizon, or whoever, and you say, "Hey, I've got a problem." So I think part of that is Samsung's issue, just with communicating with customers.

• 17:04Speaker 03

  Because like you said, when people did communicate with Samsung, it didn't make any sense. They were getting conflicting orders, or what they were supposed to do on Tuesday was not what they were supposed to do on Thursday, and it was this mishmash of confusion.

• 17:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, just to game it out, I mean, I think it's interesting to think about, I mean, again, who knows why the thing broke, but let's say it was faulty batteries. Apple's just as much at risk of getting a shipment of faulty batteries as anybody. 10 years ago, PowerBooks exploded because they had faulty batteries in them. Just a thing. If this was the iPhone, A, I think the level of crazy would be ratcheted up way higher because it's Apple.

• 17:42Speaker 03

  Oh, nuts.

• 17:43Nilay Patel?

  But you just think about, and Walt brings this up on Control Alt to get all the time, you think about AntennaGate...

• 17:50Nilay Patel?

  Apple like held a press conference. They said, "We don't think there's a problem, but we're sorry. Everybody gets a free case."

• 17:55Speaker 02

  You're holding it wrong.

• 17:56Nilay Patel?

  You're holding it wrong. Here's a bunch of videos of us holding other phones. Like, you know, they did all the work.

• 18:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:02Nilay Patel?

  Like, here's the chamber where we test it. Whatever. And then next year, they quietly redesigned the antenna because it was probably not that great. But whatever, they did it, right? And they had these stores. So like, you could just go in and give the phone back. There was like all of this attention to detail and attention to communication from that company.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  I mean, that, but that's tough for almost any company that's not Apple because who's the face of Samsung?

• 18:24Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  For you. Who is the person onstage?

• 18:28Nilay Patel?

  That one guy who makes one of the baristas?

• 18:29Speaker 02

  You're holding your Note 7 wrong.

• 18:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, they've tried to have some faces. It's just really hard. I mean, that part is hard for them, but they could just appoint a face of the company.

• 18:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:39Nilay Patel?

  Like, here's the person who's constantly on the local news.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. Who's the head of Samsung of America?

• 18:44Nilay Patel?

  I mean, we should know.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  I feel bad for not knowing.

• 18:47Nilay Patel?

  I could say any name right now.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 18:49Nilay Patel?

  Steve Johnson. Get out there. Get to work, Steve. All the Steve Johnsons in the world are.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  Really disappointed in Steve Johnson.

• 18:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, he's mad. Um, but no, I mean, but you could just have anybody be on the local news or talk to us or.

• 19:00Speaker 02

  Gregory Lee.

• 19:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  I feel so bad for not knowing that, but the president and CEO of Samsung Electronics North America.

• 19:06Nilay Patel?

  Oh, but it's not electronics. Electronics is a TV site.

• 19:09Speaker 02

  Is Gregory Lee.

• 19:10Speaker 00

  Right. It's Samsung Mobile. I know Nick DiCarlo was doing their marketing for a long time, right?

• 19:15Nilay Patel?

  This is great radio.

• 19:17Speaker 03

  See, the fact that we don't know who this is, that's the problem. We should all know because we should have all talked to him about seven times by now.

• 19:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:25Speaker 03

  Why wasn't he on the NBC Nightly News?

• 19:26Nilay Patel?

  And like even the people, not to call too many people out, but like even the people who are, represent Samsung on social media channels went totally radio silent, right? Like, it, they went into a bunker mentality when they, what they really needed to do. Was start communicating more. So now we get to Lauren's big question, which I think is a hugely important question. Is anyone gonna come back around and buy? I mean, I think the most dangerous thing for Samsung's brand is that flight attendants across the country are opening flights with, if you have a Galaxy phone, turn it off, throw it away, it's dangerous for the plane.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 20:03Nilay Patel?

  Right? And that's Samsung had to send a note, I think on a carrier in Australia, I believe it was, saying, Galaxy phones, Galaxy has seven phones are fine. It's the Note that's bad. Right? Like, the whole brand is tainted.

• 20:14Speaker 02

  I feel like it's two-pronged. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, Jordan, but there's the aspect of, Samsung needs to say, hey, we figured out exactly what was wrong and will never do it again, so that it's logical to buy another Samsung phone. Um, but then the other thing is, if they make a desirable device, I think people are gonna buy it. I think, think about hoverboards. People wanted to buy hoverboards, no matter how many people told them that it would explode. Like, people just-

• 20:40Speaker 00

  I don't know. Do you think people, are people still buying hoverboards?

• 20:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they're out there.

• 20:44Speaker 02

  It's pretty, I think it's a pretty, it was a fad, for sure.

• 20:47Nilay Patel?

  But I think the hoverboard thing, there's a difference. The difference was like, the hoverboards that blew up were the, like, unregulated, unsafety-tested Chinese hoverboards.

• 20:58Speaker 00

  Right, right.

• 20:58Nilay Patel?

  That came in with faulty batteries and not enough protection on the batteries. And it was like fairly ob, maybe it wasn't exactly right, but it was like-

• 21:05Speaker 00

  Everyone pinpointed the problem.

• 21:06Nilay Patel?

  Fairly intuitive.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  That I paid too li- little for mine.

• 21:09Nilay Patel?

  I paid too little for this product and it, it rolls on the ground and if it gets bumped, it might blow up.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 21:15Nilay Patel?

  This is like a very expensive phone. Like, it's an $800 phone. So there's, I don't think there's an intuitive connection to anything other than Samsung blew it.

• 21:24Speaker 00

  Do you guys think that Samsung will ever be able to use the name Note again?

• 21:27Nilay Patel?

  No, that's gotta be over.

• 21:28Speaker 00

  That's done, right? And that includes the tablet, I guess, then, right? The, the, because they have a note tablet. Basically, anything that has a stylus.

• 21:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 21:37Speaker 00

  They've put under the Note brand.

• 21:39Nilay Patel?

  I know. What do you think? Will they put out a Note 8? How long before they can put out a Note 8? Is it a year? Is it two years?

• 21:46Speaker 03

  It's, it's a year. Well, I think so. When, when does the S8 presumably come out? April or something?

• 21:51Speaker 00

  Uh, February.

• 21:52Speaker 03

  Isn't that usually when they come out?

• 21:53Nilay Patel?

  Because one comes out traditionally at NWC, and that is the Note.

• 21:58Speaker 00

  That's the, that note, that's not the note. The note is aug, usually around August.

• 22:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:02Nilay Patel?

  Wait, have I got it backwards?

• 22:04Speaker 03

  So when's the S8?

• 22:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, and then the S8 would probably be around MWC.

• 22:07Speaker 02

  The S7 came out in March.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  Okay, so yeah, they would announce it at MWC and then launch it with the next month.

• 22:13Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 22:13Speaker 03

  So they go radio silent. We're really sorry. The S8 comes out then. If they come out between now and then and give a TikTok, here's exactly what happened. We figured out what went wrong. This is what happened, and here's what we did to fix it. I think the, the brand is okay. Samsung phones are okay.

• 22:33Nilay Patel?

  I think that assumes that some, the rest of the market remains static, right? I think this is the big problem. And first, I'm going to read an ad, and then we're going to talk about the big problem, which I believe is known as the Google Pixel.

• 22:50Nilay Patel?

  This episode of The Vergecast is brought to you by MasterClass. MasterClass makes the world's greatest courses by bringing you the world's greatest instructor. They're dedicated to finding the best in the world, visionaries, rule breakers, leaders, and champions, and turning their wisdom into a legacy that the entire world can share. To do that, MasterClass has brought together a team of world-class educators, engineers, and artists. Together, they're crafting innovative online courses that connect instructors to students and students to each other in a community of devoted learners. Current instructors include Aaron Sorkin, Kevin Spacey, Dustin Hoffman, Serena Williams, Werner Herzog, Usher.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:24Nilay Patel?

  Usher. Think about that. James Patterson, Christina Aguilera, and Annie Leibowitz. Take Aaron Sorkin. They worked with Aaron Sorkin to create his first-ever online screenwriting class. Aaron's MasterClass contains 35 lessons spanning six hours of video, a downloadable workbook, the full screenplay to A Few Good Men, class events like screenwriting intensives, and three interactive rate and review assignments. Where you upload your work and get feedback.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  We interviewed Werner Herzog about his class.

• 23:50Nilay Patel?

  We did. That's not part of the ad, but we did. So if you're listening to this, go read that and check it out. Anyway, when you purchase a masterclass, you own it. You get lifetime access to all the course content, plus access to community events, student groups, where you can collaborate and share your ideas with classmates. Classes are on demand, so you can take them whenever you want, you're in pace, and you can re-watch as many times as you like on any device for life. So, for an exclusive clip of Aaron Sorkin discussing how he writes dialogue, go to masterclass.com/theverge. That's masterclass.com/theverge. And if you want some class codes, you just go to the cart page, you click on "Take the Class", and you can enter neilitheverge. That's a fun one.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 24:28Nilay Patel?

  You can enter friends of theverge1, which is way more complicated, or friends of theverge2.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 24:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 24:42Speaker 03

  Are they all the same?

• 24:43Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. Go to masterclass.com, report back to us. Let us know what it's like having Aaron Sorkin write your online submitted screenwriting exercises.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  Can I just read this quote from Herzog?

• 24:54Nilay Patel?

  Read a Herzog quote.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  My favorite thing that The Verge has ever published of all time.

• 24:58Nilay Patel?

  Yes. Oh, yes. You're right.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  It's about Pokémon Go. He asks the interviewer, Emily Yoshida, "Do they bite each other's hands? Do they punch each other?"

• 25:08Speaker 00

  And then Emily said no. And then what was his... He has a great follow-up, too.

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Oh, he says, "Physically, do they fight? No. Do they bite each other's hands? Do they punch each other?"

• 25:17Speaker 00

  That's great.

• 25:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Do the Pokémon bite each other?

• 25:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. Then if not, what is the point?

• 25:22Speaker 02

  There must be real people if it's a real encounter with someone else.

• 25:25Nilay Patel?

  Yes, it's true. Anyway, that's Masterclass. Aaron Sorkin, Werner Herzog. That's Masterclass. Thanks for sponsoring this, The Vergecast.

• 25:35Speaker 03

  Can I give my favorite Aaron Sorkin on writing quote?

• 25:37Nilay Patel?

  Do it.

• 25:38Speaker 03

  It was from All Things D a couple of years ago, and he said, "Writing does not look to a casual observer like writing. Instead, it looks a lot like watching ESPN."

• 25:45Nilay Patel?

  Ooh.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  And I find that to be true.

• 25:48Nilay Patel?

  When I interviewed Sorkin around the Steve Jobs movie, every time I asked him a question he didn't like, he just reached over and grabbed my shoulder.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  That's it? Would he answer?

• 25:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but he would answer things like, "That's not important." And I was like, "Wow."

• 26:04Speaker 02

  I'm gonna try that.

• 26:05Nilay Patel?

  It was remarkably effective.

• 26:08Speaker 00

  I conducted an interview like that recently.

• 26:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  But we're not gonna get into it.

• 26:11Nilay Patel?

  Well, we'll talk about it later. When it runs, we'll talk about it. But every time, I'd be like, "So this movie has nothing to do with Steve Jobs." And he would just like, touch my shoulder and be like, "Shut your mouth." It was just incredible.

• 26:24Nilay Patel?

  Anyhow, let's talk about The Danger.

• 26:26Speaker 00

  We should do a Vergecast where we just try to talk like we're Sorken-esque characters the entire time. Like, we're super witty and run off sentences into one another and like...

• 26:38Nilay Patel?

  Walk and talks.

• 26:38Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 26:39Nilay Patel?

  We should do an entire walk and talk Vergecast.

• 26:41Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 26:41Nilay Patel?

  Okay, I'm into it.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 26:42Nilay Patel?

  Done and done.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  I feel like...

• 26:44Nilay Patel?

  We gotta submit the script to Masterclass.

• 26:46Speaker 02

  Physically and mentally incapable of being a part of a Sorken dialogue.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Like, we'd be walking down the hall like, "Let me go sit down and think about something to say." "I'll catch up with you guys."

• 27:02Nilay Patel?

  Ross Miller. Ross Miller is the one human being who can talk fast enough to pull that off.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 27:06Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, The Looming Danger. So, as Jordan was saying, Samsung, let it calm down, let it breathe. They could come back. We fix the phone. Here's a Galaxy S8. Everyone make your explody phone jokes, but what the hell else are you gonna buy?

• 27:20Speaker 02

  You could call it "The Looming Safety."

• 27:25Nilay Patel?

  The Looming Safety?

• 27:26Speaker 02

  Safety on the horizon. A phone that doesn't blow up.

• 27:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:31Speaker 00

  Galaxy Safety.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  If only you could buy another phone that didn't blow up. If only one of those existed.

• 27:36Nilay Patel?

  So, but here's the thing. So, all of, so, yes, there's the iPhone, fine. But Samsung is the only manufacturer in the Android ecosystem that like, collects profits from doing the work of making and selling phones. So, if they, those people are probably still gonna buy Android phones, or in that ecosystem. I don't think they're gonna go buy an LG phone. I don't think they're gonna buy a Sony phone.

• 27:56Speaker 00

  Why not? Why would they buy the new LG, the V20?

• 27:59Nilay Patel?

  The V20 looks nice. I just...

• 28:01Speaker 03

  We all know what they're gonna buy.

• 28:04Nilay Patel?

  I think that the software update stuff for the Android is, I think people buy Galaxy phones. Either buy them because they're cheap... They buy them because they're discounted, or they buy them because they know they want that high-end phone, particularly the Note is the highest, one of the highest-end phones you can buy, period. I don't think any of the other manufacturers support their phones as well as Samsung did. So, you could either wait, wait it out. And there was like a crazy article in Mashable, the writer was like, "I'm keeping my Note. It's a great phone, chances are it won't hurt me."

• 28:30Speaker 00

  Oh, God.

• 28:31Nilay Patel?

  It's incredible. So, those people. But, let's get to it. There's the Pixel. And I think the Pixel, you know, you can get on the waitlist, like I have to, but you can like preorder it now, it'll be out in Verizon's store soon. It's Google's phone, it's a high-end Android phone, it's supported, it's gonna be marketed. I don't think Google has any desire to like wait for Samsung to fix itself, they don't have any reason to, they don't have any moral imperative to help Samsung, especially not anymore. How does Samsung come back in a world where Google has just gone full out with the Pixel? Can they come back?

• 29:08Speaker 00

  I just have to say, I think this timing is incredibly auspicious for Google, because my very first impressions of the Pixel, only having used it briefly, and I wasn't at the event, but I followed the event when it was unveiled, is like, "Yeah, this is a good first truly Google-made phone." By the way, they kept saying "Google's first phone," but in reality, Google has been making phones with hardware partners for a while now, but this was the first one that was like branded the Google phone, right? And I thought, "Yeah, it's, you know, it's got a good camera, that's great. It's a little thick, you know, it's not waterproof. It's a good phone, it's good."

• 29:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  That's where I'd put it, it looks like it's a good phone. That's not my final review, by the way, you're gonna have to go to theverge.com, check out the final review when we run it.

• 29:49Nilay Patel?

  So many caveats, Lauren.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  Well, I'm just saying, I hope I'm not breaking any embargoes here, but like, this is based on like a very brief experience, having used it and held it, and like, I just think that's how it would have been perceived, like everyone would've said, "Oh, Google's getting into hardware, and that's great, and here's a really good phone that Google made." But now, it's like a serious contender.

• 30:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:07Speaker 00

  Because of this Note stuff. And I think the only way, you know, and people are saying, "Oh, like, it's like full-stack Android, it's like full-stack Google, like, software, hardware, integrated, cool." And I think the only way to like really best that is to make like another really kick-ass Android phone.

• 30:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  The stakes are that much higher.

• 30:25Nilay Patel?

  And I just don't think Samsung has the software chops to compete. I mean, they bought Viv, the company started by the team that originally did Siri. Like, they're in a world where they're now competing against Apple and Google with their own smart assistants. And how?

• 30:40Speaker 02

  I was literally about to say Samsung can't win this fight by making a smart assistant. And then I remembered.

• 30:48Nilay Patel?

  Bought a smart assistant.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  Which, by the way, looked really good. Like the people were clearly doing good stuff.

• 30:55Nilay Patel?

  When you push the button on a Samsung phone, are you gonna get Viv or are you gonna get Google Assistant?

• 30:59Speaker 00

  And does that mean also that you have to have Viv living in other hardware around your house? Like the one thing that Google and Apple are doing and Amazon is doing is like they're putting it in these little entry date, you know, entry points all around your life.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  Right. So how Viv won't know anything beyond what you do with it on the phone unless you, maybe Viv can be in my dishwasher and my fridge.

• 31:22Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, Neil, I interrupted you earlier and I didn't mean to.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  If this were a movie, just I need to throw this out because I'm gonna forget it otherwise. If this was a movie, would you have any trouble believing that Google had sabotaged Samsung? Because it's that convenient for them.

• 31:37Speaker 02

  Google isn't organized enough to sabotage anyone.

• 31:39Nilay Patel?

  That I mean, that's basically like my take. Like I would, if if this was a movie, Google would have put out this phone like three years ago, right? Like if this was a movie, then this phone would be, this is Google realizing it has to get serious. I don't think that, I just don't think they were organized enough.

• 31:56Speaker 03

  The note starts catching fire half weeks before the Pixel comes out. It's the most convenient timing ever for one phone to implode as another one's coming out.

• 32:06Speaker 02

  It could also be like a Mighty Ducks situation.

• 32:08Nilay Patel?

  Ooh.

• 32:09Speaker 02

  Where the Hawks had Banks on their team and he was actually not supposed to be on the Hawks. He's in a different district. So like the Hawks are the bad guys and they got in trouble for breaking the rules. Samsung, if Samsung's the bad guy, they got in trouble for juicing their batteries wrong or I don't know. So now the good guys reap the rewards of the bad guy breaking the rules.

• 32:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, I just think, well, I want to talk about Lauren's piece about iMessage, too. Right? Like, if I was in the market for a phone right now, I would almost certainly buy a Pixel. I mean, I'm always in the market for a phone and I buy every phone, so I'm buying Pixel. But you understand what I'm saying. Hypothetically, if I only bought one phone a year. I mean, Paul's, it's week nine of Paul just leaving the dongle plugged into his iPhone 7, which is crazy.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  Speaking of, I gotta send back my 6.

• 33:00Nilay Patel?

  Oh, because you're on like Next or whatever?

• 33:02Speaker 02

  No, I got the T-Mobile thing, so I have to send them my phone. I keep on forgetting.

• 33:06Nilay Patel?

  T-Mobile Blaze Exchange?

• 33:10Nilay Patel?

  It's like, whatever they call it.

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Un-carrier 84.

• 33:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, doesn't matter. I'm having a great time, but I understand, like, if you want something new and different.

• 33:18Nilay Patel?

  I tweeted a picture of the Belkin dongle today, because it just looks ridiculous. I was like, you have to admit, this looks ridiculous. And so many angry fanboys defensively tweeted back at me, like, "Apple's vision is wireless." And I'm like, you know, they put wired headphones in the box, man. But anyway, so here's the thing. The big thing with the iPhone is we have to make the trade-offs in the design to get it to be waterproof and put the bigger camera. Like, I still don't buy it, because it turns out Apple designs the phone. So they could make the phone bigger, that's a choice. They just chose not to make that decision. I don't think any of the trade-offs in the iPhone are worth the inconvenience, at least in the way that I use the phone for that thing. And I just, just evaluating my usage of the phone, I don't use any of Apple's apps except for iMessage.

• 34:03Nilay Patel?

  So Lauren, you wrote a big piece about that, your last lock-in.

• 34:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, I had this moment on the plane when I was flying out here to New York, where I realized I'd been thinking about it and noodling that for a while. And then I heard, like, Dieter, your voice in my head saying, "Put it on the site." Which is really effective. It's P-I-O-T-S, by the way, for those of you who haven't heard "Put it on the site" before.

• 34:24Nilay Patel?

  You want to know what it's like to have your boss yell at you in acronyms?

• 34:27Speaker 02

  Not to be confused with pain in the ass.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  Paul said it, not me. But like, you know, when you're on a flight and you're just held captive and you're like, "All right, I guess I should do some work." So I wrote this essay and it turns out people have a lot of feelings about it. It's kind of like hundreds of comments and people really tweeted some really thoughtful stuff back at me, you know, truly, they were very thoughtful. And it seemed like, you know, so my, my, the premise was, I've thought over the past week a lot about whether or not I'm going to buy the Pixel phone. Personally, I was a little bit disappointed at how much it costs because I had just been on like, I just almost bought an Nexus 5X Ice Blue off of eBay and a couple of people on staff talked me, talked me down from it and said, "No, no, no, wait for whatever Google comes up with next because it's going to come up soon." And then, you know, it's like the $649 phone are up and I thought, "Oh, I should just buy the 5X off eBay now."

• 35:18Speaker 00

  So a little disappointed by the price. But then I really started thinking about why I'm not sure I'm going to buy the Pixel phone right away and I, and I realized it came down to messaging. I realized every single app I use, whether it's Gmail, my calendar app, Spotify, all my health and fitness apps, Slack, all the things I use on a daily basis, they're all available on Android. I like Android. It's not an inconvenience to use it, except for iMessage, which works across my desktop and my iPhone and my whole family's on it and like everybody I talk to every day is on it. And we go to cover events, we create group threads on it and like, it just, iMessage, at least in the US, is such a lock-in for me. Some of the comments I got back were people from other countries talking about their

• 36:01Speaker 00

  most popular, you know, preference, their preferences for messaging apps. And, and so I admit that the article was pretty US-centric, the one that I wrote. Or people were like, just agreeing with me and saying, "Yeah, I just, I'm totally, I'm locked in."

• 36:16Nilay Patel?

  And I don't, do you send anything with lasers anymore?

• 36:20Speaker 00

  Sent with lasers, no.

• 36:21Nilay Patel?

  Like, the best thing about Sent with lasers is every now and then Casey tweets something hilarious and he puts Sent with lasers after it. But like, I've not used a bunch of that stuff as much as I thought I would.

• 36:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's fun.

• 36:34Nilay Patel?

  It's like there.

• 36:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:35Nilay Patel?

  Right? I mean, I think that you could, like, as with all of Apple's nascent ecosystems, it will just take a minute for everybody to like, figure out what it's really for.

• 36:43Speaker 00

  Right.

• 36:44Nilay Patel?

  So I really like iOS 10. I think it's fine. I've noticed people just complain about how buggy it is, which is not normal. But like, I see, I get tons of tweets from people like, "This is so much buggier than it used to be." Tom Warren has pointed out to me how buggy it is. Ezra Klein from Vox tweeted, I think it was this morning, he's like, "Some, who at Apple decided that unlocking a phone was too hard and it should be made worse?"

• 37:07Speaker 00

  I still am swiping to open sometimes, admittedly. Admittedly, I've been doing it for weeks.

• 37:12Nilay Patel?

  Well, so that's actually a pretty good segue into the other big Jordan Golson story of the week, which is Jordan went to the Supreme Court this week. Spans all over the place. Superstar reporter Jordan Golson.

• 37:24Speaker 03

  Anywhere there's Samsung, I'm there.

• 37:26Nilay Patel?

  Not a good week for Samsung.

• 37:28Speaker 00

  Wait, I have a question. How were you in Colorado and then filing a story from New Mexico and then at the Supreme Court?

• 37:33Speaker 03

  I fly out of Albuquerque, so I drive from my home in Durango to Albuquerque. And so, on my drive to Albuquerque before, on my way to DC, a story broke and I said, "Well, I've got cell access. I'll just pull over and just write it."

• 37:47Speaker 00

  Okay. I didn't realize you flew out of Albuquerque.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  You know, Jordan, erratic travel patterns. If I didn't know better, maybe you're the man Google's paying to destroy Samsung.

• 38:00Nilay Patel?

  Agent of chaos, Jordan Golson.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  You didn't, you didn't see that in my ethics statement that I was, you know, on the Google?

• 38:07Nilay Patel?

  It's fun. Jordan pulled over on the side of the road in New Mexico, lit a note on fire, took a picture of it and put it on a website. But anyway, you were in DC, Apple versus Samsung. For a long time, Vergecast, Verge audience people was a huge part of the story of the site when we launched. We covered the hell out of it. We had an actual, we had Matt McCary, who is still a wonderful person, but Matt was on our staff. He was a patent lawyer on the Verge staff, just to be a full-time consultant for the story. And now it's like five years later, and it wandered its way up to the Supreme Court. Jordan, tell us about that a little bit.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  So it started out with this, you know, huge lawsuit arguing about patents and phones and phones that are ancient at this point. And so it kept getting appealed and appealed and appealed. And a teeny tiny sliver of that case is what finally made it to the Supreme Court. And it's like the obscurest of obscure parts of the case, which I think is fantastic.

• 39:04Speaker 00

  What is it?

• 39:05Speaker 03

  And so what they're arguing about it is Apple won its lawsuit against Samsung and the jury said, okay, you have to pay $400 million or whatever it was to Samsung has to pay $400 million to Apple. And Samsung said, no, no, no, wait, that profit that you just awarded them is for the entire phone. And we only infringed a little bit of the phone.

• 39:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 39:26Speaker 03

  And so we should only have to pay a little bit of profit because it was this, you know, home button or the front screen when the chips and the display and all that stuff, we didn't infringe and we made profit off those and we should get to keep it. And that was their argument.

• 39:39Nilay Patel?

  Right. So their design patents, which are just like generally hard to explain, but it was the rounded shape of the phone, so the location of the home button, and I believe it was the size.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  The bezel.

• 39:51Nilay Patel?

  The bezel. And not to get too wonky, but it's, those are ornamental features that are protected over time that are like patented ornamental features. They're not functional patents, like slide to unlock is a utility patent.

• 40:02Speaker 02

  So this would be like patenting a handbag design?

• 40:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:05Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. It's look and feel.

• 40:07Nilay Patel?

  Then there's another one that's like trade dress, which is like the shape of the Coke bottle.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 40:13Nilay Patel?

  Right? And that, so like a design patent, you get it and it's, you get to exclude everybody from the market for using it, but then once it expires, then people can use it unless that design has become so associated with your brand that it is effectively operates as a trademark. So there's like all of these things in the air and all that is in the case, right, Jordan? It's just the three design patents on basically the exterior design of the iPhone, whatever.

• 40:36Speaker 03

  Yes, it's these three patents and what they're arguing about, so a design patent suit has not made it to the Supreme Court in about 100 years. And so this, to design patent people and patent lawyers, this is a very big thing. And to try and explain it in about 20 seconds is really hard. But basically, the, you have to pay your profits on the article of manufacture is what the law says. And Samsung is arguing that the article of manufacture could be a single thing like the display. And the rest of the phone is separate and Apple is saying, no, no, no, you buy the phone. You don't buy the display and then add it to something else. It's all one thing. And so we will see what the Supreme Court decides.

• 41:17Speaker 03

  They've talked a lot about Samsung used in their, in their brief that they filed before the arguments. They said it was like a cup holder in a car. And if you infringed on a patent, on a design patent on a cup holder, you wouldn't expect that you would get all the profits from the entire car. That would be crazy.

• 41:34Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 41:34Speaker 03

  And so they went back and forth and they talked about like, well, you know, people might buy a phone simply for its design. And that's why they buy it. And so maybe you should get all the profit, but at the same time, the chips and the wires and all that stuff. There's something to that too. So they'll sort of come down in the middle somewhere, I imagine.

• 41:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that seemed to be the, I mean, there was a long conversation about whether the Volkswagen Beetle, like whether the iPhone is an iconic, is a design as the Volkswagen Beetle. I suspect people listening to this are like, it's a rectangle because particularly now the phones are like indistinguishable from one another. But Apple, Apple's statement was like, in like not connected to the reality of the case. Apple's statement was like, every court that has ever looked at this says Samsung is a copier. And it's like, that's not what we're talking about anymore. Like Samsung kind of agrees that they lost. It's just whether they should pay all, so not, just not a good week for Samsung.

• 42:25Speaker 03

  Not a good week for Samsung. And just one note, I really thought Chief Justice John Roberts, he said, yes, the Volkswagen Beetle is iconic. But if it cost 10 times more or got one mile per gallon or broke down all the time, it doesn't matter what it looks like. People would not have bought it. And so that was his argument.

• 42:42Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 42:42Speaker 03

  For, you know, why, yeah, it looks, the looks are important, but the insides are important as well. And then there was another comment about that, which said, yeah, but you could buy a different car that didn't look as iconic, that also didn't break down. So, you know, it's going to be such a difficult thing for them to figure out. And I'm really interested to see.

• 43:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 43:01Speaker 03

  What it comes down, but I'm kind of a legal wonk, so.

• 43:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean. Realized too. This is so exciting for me, but the case at this point has almost nothing to do with consumer technology.

• 43:12Speaker 03

  Zero.

• 43:13Nilay Patel?

  Like literally.

• 43:14Speaker 03

  It's just about money.

• 43:15Nilay Patel?

  Oh, it's just, it's, it's just, yeah, it's about money. It's, they lost and now how much they have to pay. And it's years later and they were, they were riding such a high because they. They got smacked for copying Apple too hard. They started not copying Apple. They put out their flagship phone and it started burning all up.

• 43:32Speaker 00

  I don't think the cup holder analogy really holds up either.

• 43:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  It's really more like the windshield of a car. You can display, like you need a display on the phone.

• 43:40Nilay Patel?

  But it's not the display. It's just like the design of a thing, right? Like, I think the reason the cup, so actually take the windshield, like, the windshield has a function.

• 43:50Speaker 00

  Right.

• 43:50Nilay Patel?

  Right? So you could patent, I don't know, the coating on the windshield that doesn't let it shatter as easily as some other windshield or something else, or like blocks glare. But those are utility patents. But like, the specific rake of the windshield or its curve would be like more of a design patent in this world.

• 44:07Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:08Nilay Patel?

  So it's just like...

• 44:09Speaker 03

  Or maybe the layout of the buttons on the center console.

• 44:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 44:13Speaker 03

  If you laid them out in a certain way that was really iconic.

• 44:16Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 44:17Speaker 03

  Then, you know, if BMW, the way they lay out their buttons, if someone else copied that, and they were like, oh geez, that looks really similar, that'd be the same thing. But even so, you wouldn't award all the profits that they make on a $50,000 car.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:29Speaker 03

  Based on those buttons.

• 44:30Nilay Patel?

  Because you wouldn't assume that you're buying it for that specific functional, or specific design.

• 44:36Speaker 00

  You would or would not assume?

• 44:37Nilay Patel?

  I, I don't think anybody buys a car based on the, like, I love this rake of a windshield.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:43Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna buy this copycat version of it.

• 44:46Speaker 03

  And that's one of the things they talked about. They said you'd have to bring in experts to analyze the phone and talk to people who bought it and figure out, why did you buy it? And because, you know, it could be that that design was 5% of the reason that people bought it, or 10% of the reason, or 100% of the reason. And you'd have to have experts come in, and that's a crazy complicated question. But one of the, uh, one of the justices said, well, antitrust is really complicated, and we let juries figure that out, so why can't we have them figure this out? And so, it's crazy complicated for such a narrow question. Because Neelai, you and I were talking earlier about how patent, especially patent lawsuits in general, never make it to a jury.

• 45:25Nilay Patel?

  Never.

• 45:26Speaker 03

  And that's what this argument is about, is specifically about jury things. They all get settled.

• 45:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:31Speaker 03

  So what are they even arguing about?

• 45:32Nilay Patel?

  And it's basically because Apple didn't want to, right? They wanted the win. And I think-

• 45:37Speaker 03

  A public win.

• 45:38Nilay Patel?

  They wanted a big public, the jury went away and deliberated and said, "Samsung copied us." And they got it, and now they're, they're just, they want the win at the Supreme Court too. You can just feel it. So this is not included yet?

• 45:49Speaker 03

  Do you think Steve Jobs would have been, so it's been argued and, and then the decision will come out, maybe December or, or next year sometime. But so, you know, remember the famous quote about Steve Jobs that he would-

• 45:59Nilay Patel?

  You'd go nuclear.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  -thermonuclear war, you know, do you think he would have been happy to see this day? We made it to the Supreme Court, we're gonna get our win? Or is it too obscure a thing?

• 46:09Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I think at this point, I think honestly, he would have had bigger problems to solve, right? Like, he focused on like putting out the TV product, like, the mobile market, he beat everybody.

• 46:20Speaker 03

  It's moved on, yeah.

• 46:21Nilay Patel?

  All of the competitors have fallen off the face of the earth. I mean, in that time, I remember, what, they sued Motorola? And Judge Richard Posner in, what is it, the Seventh Circuit in Illinois was like, "This is ridiculous, get out of my court," and like threw it out. He was like, "This is nonsense," like-

• 46:38Speaker 03

  Go settle it.

• 46:39Nilay Patel?

  Go settle it, he was like, "Just, you're, you're all making phones, like, no one gives a shit, like, get out." And his decision didn't say it in quite so many words, but that was the thrust of it, was like, "This is nonsense, what you're doing is nonsense, you're both huge sophisticated businesses, figure it out, get out." In other places, it didn't go that way. So, I don't know, it was just like, it's one of those things where, bad week for Samsung, just like every possible dimension. But what struck me about it was, Slide to Unlock was the original Apple patent, right? I did a whole video at MWC in like 2012 where I just went and looked at how every other company had to design around Slide to Unlock. And they all built a different system because they weren't allowed to use it. And now Apple just like walked away from it, iOS 10?

• 47:22Nilay Patel?

  Everyone's like, "This sucks," because it kinda sucks.

• 47:26Speaker 03

  And Apple still made it worse.

• 47:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, I, I don't know, do you, you're still sliding? I'm still sliding, sometimes.

• 47:31Speaker 02

  I don't slide ever accidentally, the problem is, is that I'm always listening to like an audiobook-

• 47:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  And then like maybe someone wants to talk to me or something, so I have to pause the audiobook. So, if I put my thumb with my fingerprint on the phone to wake it up-

• 47:48Speaker 02

  It unlocks it. So I I'm trying to train myself to hit the side button to just wake it up. Or I flick the screen like like an Apple Watch gesture to wake the screen up.

• 47:59Nilay Patel?

  Oh, I haven't. I forgot that it's like.

• 48:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, it does that now.

• 48:02Nilay Patel?

  It lights on.

• 48:02Speaker 00

  Motorola has been doing for like three generations.

• 48:06Speaker 02

  Because otherwise, if I unlock my phone, I go like to my most using the app or the or the home screen, and then I have to like pull up the controls and then pause.

• 48:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  Which is made. I I have not found iOS 10 confusing, but I think it's interesting. On this whole shape thing, every time I see the pixel ad that, you know, it starts out as a search bar and expands into a phone.

• 48:29Nilay Patel?

  Mm hmm.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  I still think it's the iPhone.

• 48:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:32Speaker 02

  And like, I know it's not the iPhone, but like, e- even if you don't think that they're copying the iPhone directly, there's something about that ad that's like, you know, and love this shape. What if Google made this shape?

• 48:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and I think that's that's a good piece of Apple's argument, right? They infringed our iconic design and they sold phones because of it. The question is, like Jordan's saying, what percentage of the purchase decision was driven by that versus they copied, you know, literally every Samsung copied literally every icon on the iPhone. And that was part of the case. Like, this thing is so complicated and so wonky.

• 49:08Speaker 03

  Do you remember from the original iPhone launch when when Steve put up the slide and it had all the phones and they all had keyboards?

• 49:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 49:16Speaker 03

  And then, oh, here's our phone. It doesn't have a keyboard anymore. And now you look and no phone has a keyboard and it's like, okay, we can see the progression here, but whether or not it's worth $400 million.

• 49:27Nilay Patel?

  Which, by the way, to both of these companies is nothing. Like Samsung.

• 49:32Speaker 03

  I think that's like two days of Apple profit or something.

• 49:34Nilay Patel?

  That costs more than $400 million. Like, they sell nuclear reactors, like, just, you'll be fine. Like, pay the money. Like, the idea that Samsung has some big vested interest in the design patent law of the United States is nonsense.

• 49:48Speaker 03

  And I gotta imagine.

• 49:49Nilay Patel?

  They're just trying to get the win, too.

• 49:50Speaker 03

  I gotta imagine that Samsung tried to settle over and over and over and over and over. And like you said, Apple's like, nope.

• 49:56Nilay Patel?

  I don't think Apple has an interest in settling.

• 49:57Speaker 03

  We want guilty, you know, your liable judgments.

• 50:00Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 50:01Speaker 03

  We care about nothing else.

• 50:02Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna read one more ad, then we're gonna, Ashley has Ashley's Gadget Corner.

• 50:06Speaker 02

  She does every week.

• 50:07Nilay Patel?

  Which she does every week without fail.

• 50:09Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 50:09Nilay Patel?

  We're we're live.

• 50:10Speaker 03

  Listening to it.

• 50:10Nilay Patel?

  And then we have a tiny lightning round and then we're done.

• 50:14Nilay Patel?

  This episode of the Vergecast, also brought to you by Graphic Stock. Graphic Stock is a subscription-based stock media company that gives you unlimited access to over 300,000 premium photos, illustrations, vectors, and design elements that everyone can afford. You get great value with the unlimited download model. They actually have the largest unlimited download library of graphics, photos, vectors, and images available to the creative community. Most websites will charge you per download, which costs as much as $30 for an image. That adds up quickly. But with Graphic Stock, you get unlimited downloads with your membership for an annual rate. There's no credits, there's no limits, there's no hidden charges. It's the same stuff that you'd find in more expensive stock sites at a way cheaper price, and they're always adding new content to the library, so it stays fresh. During a seven-day free trial, you can download 140 pieces of content. It's only $99 for an annual subscription after that, which, do the math, less than $10 a month.

• 50:57Nilay Patel?

  Everything is 100% royalty-free, even if your subscription is canceled. You get unrestricted usage rights for personal and commercial projects, and you get to keep what you download and maintain those usage rights forever. Think about that. Forever. What lasts forever in this stock market? That's a long time. Anyway, exclusive to Vergecast listeners, sign up for a seven-day free trial today, graphicstock.com/vergecast. That's graphicstock.com/vergecast for free. Seven days. Roll the tape. Where's Ashley?

• 51:25Speaker 04

  A love letter to a knockoff Louis Vuitton flip phone. Dear knockoff Louis Vuitton flip phone, I've been looking for you. I don't know if I'll ever find you in the US, but I want to believe. I want to imagine that one day I could take your gold-plated body out to the clubs in Brooklyn and show you off. I know everyone would be jealous. I want to flip you open during a tense exchange with a friend and walk off pretending like I got a phone call. My friend would wish she had a flip phone for effect, too. But I don't totally get you. You have so many buttons that maybe don't have a purpose? Like, those four buttons with the Louis Vuitton-esque images printed on them, what do they do? Are they just for show?

• 52:09Speaker 04

  I'd be okay with it if they were. I know the center LV button takes me back to a central menu, but everything else makes no sense. "You confuse me," knockoff Louis Vuitton flip phone. A YouTube video attempts to explain you to me, but the person using you only speaks Russian, and I don't speak Russian. I found you on Instagram through a Los Angeles-based creative studio. I know, typical. You weren't tagged, and I didn't know if you were an art piece. I Googled you. I saw your photo on some Russian websites. Normally, that'd scare me off, but I'm reluctantly intrigued. I can't explain it. Honestly, knockoff Louis Vuitton flip phone, I think you're what I've been needing and wanting.

• 52:53Speaker 04

  You're mini, so you'd fit in my bag around a keychain attached to my clutch. You're gold, and therefore luxurious. You appropriate a legitimate fashion brand, which makes you both confident and sophisticated. You're simple. You don't load Instagram or Snapchat. I mean, I don't think you turn on. But if you did, you definitely don't have apps. I could just send messages in the club and call my friends on you. Seriously, knockoff Louis Vuitton flip phone, we'd make a great pair. Thinking about you. Ashley.

• 53:29Speaker 03

  Is there anything more satisfying than snapping shut a StarTech phone after a call?

• 53:34Nilay Patel?

  I know. What are we doing in our lives?

• 53:36Speaker 03

  I miss it.

• 53:37Nilay Patel?

  I mean, Ashley wants a flip phone bad.

• 53:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:39Nilay Patel?

  She talks to me about it at least once a week.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  It's becoming a real problem.

• 53:44Nilay Patel?

  So, Circuit Breaker Room grinds its walls. Paul, do you want to plug your newest Circuit Breaker Venture, Emotional Tech Support?

• 53:51Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Ashley and I, Ashley who you just heard in your ears, as you do every week.

• 53:58Nilay Patel?

  It's for her normal segments.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  For the segment that she does every week. We did a Facebook Live called Emotional Tech Support.

• 54:06Nilay Patel?

  Which I think we should turn into a full-time podcast. Let's be real.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  We should do something.

• 54:10Nilay Patel?

  What happened during this?

• 54:11Speaker 02

  Basically, there's like a 8444 emotion is a phone number that people could call during the show. And then they could tell me about their, tell Ashley and I about their, their gadget problems. And then we would answer them not practically, but emotionally and engage with. Cause I just get, I get so frustrated sometimes with technology. It just doesn't work how I want it to work. And nobody's really going to fix it for me and it's never going to get better. But sometimes I just want someone to hear me out. So, so I try to, we try to provide that to people.

• 54:47Nilay Patel?

  Well, I'm insistent that we do it again. So go find that on Facebook, listen to it. We might put on the Verge Extras thing as a podcast.

• 54:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:54Nilay Patel?

  It's an idea we have.

• 54:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:55Nilay Patel?

  I'm into this.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  I really like taking over Verge Extras as just weird experience.

• 55:00Nilay Patel?

  That's what it's for. So a tiny little lightning round thing.

• 55:04Speaker 00

  I just snapchatted that whole thing.

• 55:05Nilay Patel?

  One, one thing more to talk about.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  That's a long snap. I guess snaps are like, what, 30 seconds?

• 55:10Speaker 00

  It was really like 10 seconds, but I just caught the end of, but you're.

• 55:14Nilay Patel?

  Multi-channel media brand.

• 55:15Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 55:15Nilay Patel?

  Everywhere that you are.

• 55:16Speaker 03

  Off-platform publishing.

• 55:18Nilay Patel?

  Whether you're listening to this podcast, you're reading the website, or just creeping on Lauren's Snapchat. The Verge is there.

• 55:25Nilay Patel?

  One more thing to talk about, just real quick. Amazon launched a music service this week. It's cheaper, it's $8 a month, sort of what 10 for everybody else. And if you have an Echo, it's like $4, but it only works on one Echo at a time.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  Can I make a confession?

• 55:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 55:41Speaker 02

  I already thought Amazon already had a music service.

• 55:43Nilay Patel?

  No, this is their new one.

• 55:44Speaker 00

  They did.

• 55:44Nilay Patel?

  Well, they have, they have Amazon Prime Music.

• 55:46Speaker 00

  They had Prime Music, which is part of your Prime subscription. And then they would offer you like a certain amount of storage for saving your music files.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  Like the old fashioned purchasing songs.

• 55:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, but it was like a web service, like you had to go to like the web dashboard to listen to it for the most part.

• 56:01Nilay Patel?

  And Prime Music also sucked.

• 56:03Speaker 00

  You'd play it through Alexa.

• 56:04Nilay Patel?

  Right, when you were like, like Helen Rosner, who's the executive editor at Eater. She was tweeting me this week. She's like, whenever I ask my Alexa to play music, it just plays Christmas songs at me. Because Prime Music's library was so bad.

• 56:17Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 56:18Nilay Patel?

  But she like, I'd be like, play Frank Sinatra. And it would just play Sinatra's Christmas concert. So but now it's a real music service, the whole catalog, it does the whole thing.

• 56:26Speaker 02

  Okay, I'm sorry for about reading up on this.

• 56:29Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it doesn't matter. My question is, would you sign up? Would you sign up for Amazon service?

• 56:34Speaker 02

  I don't have an Alexa.

• 56:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:36Speaker 02

  And I already have Spotify and Apple Music subscriptions.

• 56:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:41Speaker 02

  So definitely not. But Amazon did just make Twitch Prime, which like I was a Twitch subscriber and now.

• 56:51Speaker 00

  Ad free, right?

• 56:52Speaker 02

  And I'm a Prime subscriber. And now for free, I, yeah, you can watch Twitch ad free, but also you get to subscribe to one person a month, which means you get to like, give them more money, like your favorite streamer, you give more money and you get a cool new icon next to your name in Twitch. I think it's cool that Amazon buying Twitch has done such a good job with Twitch.

• 57:16Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 57:17Speaker 02

  And not destroying Twitch.

• 57:18Speaker 00

  Just by keeping it what it is?

• 57:19Speaker 02

  Which just seems rare. Yeah, they kept it what it was and they like have emphasized and improved it. And it did not at all get destroyed by YouTube Gaming. And in fact, I think they're just gonna start doing where you, streamers can upload videos, instead of just capture from their streams. So I think it's just a great success story of, I don't know what happened behind the scenes, but Amazon did not mess up Twitch.

• 57:46Nilay Patel?

  That's a good story.

• 57:47Speaker 02

  And now they're, and now they're just giving any Prime subscriber more better Twitch. All right. Are you gonna buy Amazon?

• 57:54Speaker 03

  Twitch is better than an Echo.

• 57:56Speaker 00

  I'm gonna try it, but I don't know. I'm pretty, I pay for, we're a split household. I pay for Spotify. My significant other pays for YouTube, oh, well, YouTube Red slash Google Play. I guess if you pay $10 for one, you get the other.

• 58:09Speaker 02

  I'll pay for that.

• 58:09Speaker 00

  And I don't pay for Apple Music, but I'm like pretty invested in Spotify at this point. And they just introduced the daily mixes, so you don't just have Discover Weekly now, and they do a pretty good job of that. And. I don't know, it would have to be pretty, it would have to be pretty compelling. I'm definitely not going to pay for the $4 a month Echo only. I just don't see the point when I can shout at Alexa right now and have.

• 58:34Speaker 02

  Do you use Echo a lot?

• 58:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, I use it a lot. It's in the kitchen. We moved it from, it was originally the living room and didn't make sense there. I moved to the kitchen. And honestly, the thing I do with it 90% of the time is set timers for cooking.

• 58:46Speaker 02

  Great.

• 58:46Speaker 00

  Set so many timers. Pretty much if you go down.

• 58:49Speaker 02

  That's what I use Siri for.

• 58:50Speaker 00

  The app for me, it's like, set timer for seven minutes, set timer for 18 minutes.

• 58:54Speaker 02

  Saying that out loud is somehow so much faster than.

• 58:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 58:58Speaker 00

  And music. Music's the other thing.

• 58:59Speaker 02

  Well, but like, good, good on Amazon for making it easy enough to use Spotify with their hardware product that.

• 59:05Nilay Patel?

  Well, because they didn't have this other product, right? Like.

• 59:07Speaker 00

  Right. What's gonna happen now?

• 59:09Speaker 03

  Do you guys listen to music with your Echo? Because to me, the speaker's terrible, so I never use it.

• 59:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's not great, but I do it all the time.

• 59:14Speaker 00

  My kitchen's like two feet big. So really, you know, it's just, just kind of like, you just need it right there. I don't know. We also have a Sonos in the kitchen and.

• 59:24Nilay Patel?

  But Amazon to.

• 59:25Speaker 03

  Well, the integration is coming.

• 59:26Nilay Patel?

  It's coming. Like, that's gonna be awesome. Like, play music in my whole house and then all the Sonos lights up. I mean, I don't know. I, I think Amazon having a music service is, it's like table stakes, but it's not gonna do anything, right? It's like.

• 59:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's not what was holding me back from the Amazon lifestyle.

• 59:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. What was holding me back from the Amazon lifestyle is the only hardware product they make that I like is the Echo. Like, I don't want to use the rest of their services.

• 59:49Speaker 00

  You don't want the fire TV stick? Yeah, what about Kindle?

• 59:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, I guess I use the Kindle, but.

• 59:55Speaker 03

  Or is that separate?

• 59:56Nilay Patel?

  It doesn't feel like in Amazon, I don't know, I don't know. It's not like.

• 59:59Speaker 03

  It's just that's where your books are. That's it.

• 1:00:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's, it's just this like, single purpose device. Like, it doesn't, I don't know. It's good. It's the best one, you know, that's the one everybody has, but it doesn't feel as invasive ecosystem-wise as everything else.

• 1:00:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:13Nilay Patel?

  Right, like, everything else is about ecosystem lock-in. Actually, I was saying the law earlier this week. I think the story of 2017 is going to be ecosystem lock-in.

• 1:00:20Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:20Nilay Patel?

  And it's going to be consumers rebelling against the fact that to get the most out of anything, they have to buy everything from a single vendor. And I think that's just going to be, I think people are going to realize that it's really inconvenient and really bad.

• 1:00:32Speaker 00

  Well, you know what the sub-story of that is?

• 1:00:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:34Speaker 00

  Is that, is ecosystem lock-in, but by acquiring a bunch of sites, or services, or brands, and keeping them the way they are, just like Paul is saying about Twitch.

• 1:00:44Nilay Patel?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:45Speaker 00

  Like, I just started using Audible, and that's an Amazon brand, but, I mean, I guess you'd sort of know it from looking at it, but it's it's kind of separate, and like, Facebook's pretty much kept Instagram separate, and, you know, I think it's going to be about sort of trying to keep things authentic feeling for users.

• 1:01:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:01Speaker 00

  Even as the company tries to just suck you into all their services.

• 1:01:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but nothing about Instagram forces you to use Facebook, right? It, I think the, the bad lock-in is, I want to try a different product, but I can't leave because of iMessage, or Microsoft bought Sunrise, and now I have to use Outlook.

• 1:01:18Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:18Nilay Patel?

  Like, I think those are the hostile pieces of it.

• 1:01:21Speaker 02

  Those are definitely the hostile ones.

• 1:01:22Nilay Patel?

  And then the good lock-in is, we bought Twitch, now they don't worry about money, and they're just rolling out features.

• 1:01:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:01:26Nilay Patel?

  Right, and those are kind of, they're different ways to go.

• 1:01:29Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:30Nilay Patel?

  And it's typically the companies that are, like, weaker in the market that don't lock you in is hard. It's like, I think that's why Amazon will happily let you set Spotify as the default, because they're not going to just compete by, they're not going to hamstring the F, the Echo by forcing-

• 1:01:43Speaker 02

  F'ing Echo.

• 1:01:44Nilay Patel?

  The F'ing Echo. They're not going to, they're not going to hamstring the Echo by tying it to Amazon Music. Like, they'd rather just win with the Echo. And then later on, once they've won, they can, like, push Amazon Music.

• 1:01:54Speaker 02

  This is why I'm so sad. I, I think, Amazon, maybe because, yeah, maybe because they're a bit of an underdog in some of these markets, but Amazon just seems to do it right, and I really wish they were good at phones.

• 1:02:04Nilay Patel?

  So do they, man.

• 1:02:06Speaker 00

  I also like how you have this warm, sort of fuzzy feel towards Amazon when they're such like incredible competitors and, you know, undercut everybody and.

• 1:02:17Speaker 02

  Well, I spend most of my time on Audible. Amazon bought that a long time ago and never messed it up. I've been buying a lot more stuff on Amazon. I've finally got over my fear of ordering things online.

• 1:02:28Nilay Patel?

  There you go.

• 1:02:28Speaker 02

  And now, and then they bought Twitch and they didn't mess it up. They're like a very developer friendly company, like as far as like their tech talks and stuff. So I feel like I have that angle on them too. And, um, but yeah, maybe it's just, I'm not afraid of them the way I'm afraid of a Google or Apple that like, oh, if they trick me into using this, I might be i-messaged. I might be trapped.

• 1:02:50Speaker 00

  Interesting.

• 1:02:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, I think, I don't think it's sorry now. Like it's just building, right? But if, and these are all hypotheticals, but if the AI thing happens and Google stuff is way better, people are going to realize they're locked into the iOS ecosystem. That probably won't happen. But the headphone thing is another example. It's super silly, but once people have to buy new headphones for this phone, so you don't have a dongle permanently plugged in their stuff, they realize the headphones are a little bit more expensive.

• 1:03:17Speaker 02

  The new anecdote from this week was someone's like, I was like, oh, what's that? And I was like, this, oh, this is the dongle for headphones. Oh, right. So you can use wireless.

• 1:03:27Speaker 00

  Oh, the type of dongle was like some type of antenna.

• 1:03:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  Oh, that's really funny.

• 1:03:31Speaker 02

  Cause before.

• 1:03:32Speaker 03

  If that could double as an antenna and get you better service, that would be awesome.

• 1:03:37Speaker 00

  Jordan, don't even put the idea out there because next phone, there's going to be some terrible hanging dongle.

• 1:03:43Nilay Patel?

  Well, that's what's coming back is like the extendable antennas.

• 1:03:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. You pull up on the thing before you make a call. You pull it up and snap it open and dial it away.

• 1:03:51Nilay Patel?

  No, but like the Bluetooth headphones, that's what, I don't mean the wired ones, the Bluetooth headphones, the fact that to get the best. Bluetooth experience on the iPhone, you have to buy Beats headphones. That's just another little example of lock-in. Like, it's, it's all over the industry, don't get me wrong. I just think it's gonna come to some sort of head because people are gonna understand that it's happening to them and they're gonna not like it.

• 1:04:13Speaker 03

  I think the lock-in is coming because Apple was so successful with it and everyone else, Google or whoever, is like, I need a piece of that action.

• 1:04:20Nilay Patel?

  I just, I don't know, like, the echo to me is, why does Amazon need, really need a music streaming service? They don't really need one. But they know that they have this piece of hardware that people like. They could give that money away to Spotify, or they could collect it themselves.

• 1:04:33Speaker 00

  Wait, wait, I have an idea. Do you think Amazon is gonna start making its own music, the way it makes its own content for video streaming? And if so, what would the Amazon band be called?

• 1:04:43Nilay Patel?

  Oh, the Prime. They would just call it the Prime.

• 1:04:45Speaker 00

  The Primos?

• 1:04:46Nilay Patel?

  The Primos.

• 1:04:49Speaker 00

  Paul's thinking.

• 1:04:50Nilay Patel?

  Paul's got it.

• 1:04:51Speaker 02

  I'm trying to think of the, the, so, Amazon's technique with TV shows is find a well-loved existing property or a well-loved existing director. And so, so they would take, they'd make a supergroup out of, like, members that used to be part of other big supergroups. It'd be like Fergie and Harry Styles.

• 1:05:14Nilay Patel?

  Well, this is the worst idea.

• 1:05:15Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:05:16Nilay Patel?

  And it'd be called, like, the Jeff Bezos Funk Project.

• 1:05:20Speaker 02

  With Fergie and Harry Styles. And it would sell like crazy. Well, it wanted to sell like crazy.

• 1:05:26Speaker 03

  Free with your Amazon Prime.

• 1:05:27Speaker 02

  Free with your Amazon Prime.

• 1:05:29Nilay Patel?

  Fergie now just comes free with Amazon Prime. She just comes to your house, she's like, Alexa, drop a beat.

• 1:05:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, if you order anything from Amazon Prime now, Fergie brings it to you. Here are your cough drops, Mr. Patel.

• 1:05:43Speaker 02

  Writing a drum.

• 1:05:45Nilay Patel?

  Oh, someone, I was just talking to somebody in our studio who said they were in Seattle over the weekend on vacation, and they drove by the Amazon campus and just saw them testing the delivery drones.

• 1:05:54Speaker 00

  Oh, really?

• 1:05:55Nilay Patel?

  Which is amazing.

• 1:05:55Speaker 00

  Oh, cool. What were they delivering?

• 1:05:57Nilay Patel?

  I don't think she, I don't think she, like, ran up to them. I think she just saw them testing. It was puppies. Well, let's, let's go. It was actually Fergie.

• 1:06:05Speaker 00

  Starbucks? They were keeping it all.

• 1:06:08Nilay Patel?

  Drop a beat.

• 1:06:11Nilay Patel?

  All right. That, fortunately, unfortunately.

• 1:06:14Speaker 03

  On that note.

• 1:06:15Nilay Patel?

  On that, on that very strange and somewhat disturbing note of Fergie flying from the sky singing to you. Wait, you have a note? No! Turn that thing off! All right, it's all.

• 1:06:25Speaker 03

  The Galaxy Note 7.

• 1:06:26Nilay Patel?

  This is really gone.

• 1:06:27Speaker 02

  It was such a good podcast, too.

• 1:06:29Nilay Patel?

  Okay, that was it. That was the whole show. I want to thank MasterClass once again for sponsoring today's episode. MasterClass makes the world's greatest courses by bringing the world's greatest instructors. Aaron Sorkin, teaching MasterClass in screenwriting. There's 35 lessons, over six hours of videos, there's interactive assignments. It'll help you learn the craft of screenwriting, write your own screenplays. Aaron covers the rules of storytelling, dialogue, character development, and what makes a script sell. For an exclusive clip of Aaron Sorkin discussing how he writes dialogue, go to masterclass.com/theverge. That's masterclass.com/verge. Listen to that. Thanks, MasterClass. There's also tons of stuff to listen to all over The Verge. Lauren Good hosts a show. What's your show called?

• 1:07:08Speaker 00

  Too Embarrassed to Ask.

• 1:07:10Nilay Patel?

  What happened this week on Too Embarrassed to Ask?

• 1:07:11Speaker 00

  We talked all about exploding batteries.

• 1:07:14Nilay Patel?

  There you go.

• 1:07:14Speaker 00

  Yep. But no, really, check it out. iTunes.com, recode.net/TooEmbarrassedToAsk. It's everywhere.

• 1:07:20Nilay Patel?

  It's everywhere. It's on our Snapchat right now. What's Tech happens on Tuesdays. Chris Plant. Actually, this week was really cool, because Chris wasn't there. Caitlin Tiffany, who's a genius on our staff, had Ashley Carmen on as a guest. They talked about how GIFs are taking over photo apps, which is really interesting, and really fun to listen to, actually. And then Walt Mindy Control at least on Thursdays, which is pretty fun. This week, we also talked about exploding batteries. But then some other stuff. Walt just read things to Siri, like the whole show, and was like, "It's not fucking working." It's great. It's a classic Walt podcast. And then Kara Swisher does Recode Decode.

• 1:07:55Speaker 02

  Recode Decode.

• 1:07:56Nilay Patel?

  And Peter Kafka does Recode Media, all of which are wonderful. So go on iTunes, find all that stuff, listen to it, or don't, but just make sure you rate it highly, because that's important to us. Go to Twitter, we're at Verge on Twitter. We're at, we're Verge on Snapchat, we're Verge on Instagram, everywhere we want to be. I am at Reckless on Twitter, Paul's at FeaturePaul, Lauren Good is Lauren Good. Jordan, you're Jay Golson?

• 1:08:14Speaker 03

  JL Golson.

• 1:08:15Nilay Patel?

  JL Golson on Twitter. Jordan Golson, Samsung reporter extraordinaire this week at The Verge. We're gonna let you get back to cars soon, one of these days.

• 1:08:23Speaker 03

  Yo, can't wait.

• 1:08:25Nilay Patel?

  But follow Jordan, he's been doing just great work on the story, which I don't think is over yet. Anyway, that was it. That was Vergecast. It happened to us and to you, and together we experienced it.

• 1:08:34Speaker 03

  It was amazing. Rock and roll.

• 1:08:36Nilay Patel?

  Paul. Paul.

• 1:08:37Speaker 03

  Rock scotch.