Microsoft Build 2017, Echo Show, and a Cortana speaker

Welcome back. This week’s episode of The Vergecast comes after Microsoft Build 2017, so Nilay and Dieter bring in Ashley Carman and first-time guest Chaim Gartenberg, two of our great Circuit Breaker reporters, to fill us in on what happened. The cast also discusses Amazon’s newest addition to the Echo lineup, the Echo Show, and what’s happening with these voice assistant products. There’s a lot more in the show, so listen to it all to get all the scoops. 01:38 - Microsoft Build 2017 20:38 - Windows Store news 22:57 - 10 S — lockdown 29:25 - Microsoft’s Story Remix app is Windows Movie Maker on steroids 24:17 - Harman Kardon teases its Cortana-powered speaker 37:13 - Amazon officially unveils touchscreen Echo Show 55:12 - Ashley’s weekly segment “Echo Gadget” 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.

• 0:04Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship audio experience of Theverge.com. I think podcasts are over. Yeah. And it's about audio experiences now, wherever you are. Podcasts are like an old work. Do you have an iPod? Answer truthfully, that you use every day? The answer is no. I wish I had an iPod. Your phone, your iPhone is technically one-third an iPod.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  It's an iPod, it's an iPod, a phone and a revolutionary internet communicator.

• 0:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. You really undersold that internet communicator thing. Anyway, Dieter Bone is in the studio.

• 0:35Speaker 02

  Hello, yes.

• 0:37Nilay Patel?

  I love it when that happens.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  You can't tell because it's an audio experience, but I'm right here, looking at everybody in the face.

• 0:42Nilay Patel?

  And that's why we're going to complete one another's sentences with even less delay than usual. Ashley is here as well.

• 0:50Speaker 03

  Hello, hi.

• 0:51Nilay Patel?

  And special first time Vergecast appearance. What? Superstar, circuit breaker writer, tech writer, general man about town, Heim Gartenberg is here. Hi. You know, he's a superstar because he's humble. Yeah. He treats all the little people nice. So here is a truth, a fact. Dieter and I have been holed up with the other editors of The Verge at our sort of mid-year hangout, talk about how things are going. So we have no idea what's going on. Yeah. A little bit of idea. We, we, we read the site. We're reading the site, but we're not like in the mix, which is fun. I actually love those moments when you just get to read the site. But there's a lot of news this week. Tons. Tons and tons and tons of news.

• 1:36Nilay Patel?

  Most importantly, today, this very day on which we're recording, Microsoft Build occurred. Tom Warren is out in Seattle. Yep. There's a bunch of news about Windows. For example, they didn't come up with another name, so they're just going to call it the Fall Creators Update. Creators are now on seasons. Do you create in the summer, spring or fall?

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Here's what I thought was going to happen at Build. Nothing.

• 2:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  Like, a couple of things, like they'll talk about, I had some expectations. I expected a couple of small things, but like, they just had the laptop event, my education, and they're going to have apparently another event in Shanghai or Taiwan, where is it going to be later on? There's going to be another one.

• 2:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so Build's in the middle, I was like, oh, well, they'll do some stuff, but this is going to be really developer focused and they probably won't go like crazy. But no, I think they went crazy. I think that... I think a lot of things about what they announced.

• 2:33Nilay Patel?

  Um, Microsoft is in the unique position of being quietly one of the most interesting companies in tech because they lost in mobile. So all they can do is make Windows crazy and they are just all in on how crazy Windows can be. But Haim, you and Ashley were actually covering the event today. You want to run through what happened?

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. So the biggest thing is Microsoft is really doubling down on putting Windows everywhere.

• 3:03Nilay Patel?

  They've been doubling down on that since 1994.

• 3:05Speaker 01

  I mean, even more so, like.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  No.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  In the sense that they don't have a phone platform that crashed and burned badly. So the only option left is for them to infiltrate basically everyone else's. So the new stuff is.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  So you're saying Windows is a virus?

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Yes. In an ideal world.

• 3:29Nilay Patel?

  Frank Shaw is listening. Wonderful.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  A good, a good virus. A helpful, a helpful virus.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  It's like toxoplasmosis. It makes you love cats. It may kill you eventually, but in the meantime, you have a fuzzy cat.

• 3:42Speaker 01

  But that means Cortana on everything. And there's this new links that will link Cortana to everything else. I need to. So you have the timeline stuff, the cloud clipboard that will bring your Windows experience with you where you go. So when you finish a document on your computer and you go to your phone, your phone will pop up a message asking if you want to continue that document through Cortana. So it's very like hacky sort of Apple's continuity thing, but it's one that keeps you within Microsoft's ballpark.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  It transcends operating system a little bit if they can pull it off.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  I mean, we should talk about timeline a lot. I think timeline is, might be hackier than continuity because they don't own the phone platform, but it is way more interesting to me. Because continuity, like, I never use it when I'm on an iPhone. Like, sometimes the icon pops up. Most of the time it doesn't. It's like, meh. But the idea that timeline is a straight up, long history of everything. I've done is kind of exciting, also a little terrifying, but like on a Mac.

• 4:45Nilay Patel?

  Get into it a little bit more. What is timeline?

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay, so I was getting there on a Mac, you know, it's a winding journey on the podcast. Right? You swipe up, you see all your windows, right? What timeline does is it still shows you all your windows, but then as you can just scroll down to see all the windows you closed and all the stuff you were doing before. So you get like your multitasking right there, but then there's like your history tasking.

• 5:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 5:09Speaker 02

  I don't know what to call it.

• 5:10Nilay Patel?

  States.

• 5:11Speaker 02

  States. And then they like sync that to via the Cortana app, which is a whole thing to your other devices and to your phones.

• 5:21Speaker 02

  And so in the demo. Hell out of this.

• 5:24Nilay Patel?

  In the demo, they were actually using a Windows phone, so it looked great.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:29Nilay Patel?

  So you're like working on a PowerPoint and you close it on your computer and then you pick up your phone. And it's like, hey, you were just working on it. Do you want to open it again? Or are you working on a one PC and you go to the other PC and Cortana is like, hey, do you want to look at this stuff that you were just looking at? So it's saving all this usage and state information off of your PC as you use it. They're calling it Windows Graph, which is something I want to unpack in a little bit because that's fascinating to me. And then they're use, they're, they're offering you through Cortana as an app on your phone. Or as a system level service on other Windows devices, the ability to restore those states across everything. That's a big, it's a big move.

• 6:12Nilay Patel?

  It's also, there's also a bunch of other like Windows stuff happening. What? That's like one of the biggest announcements at Build, but there's a bunch of others and I just want to make sure we list them.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Can you tell us how the clipboard syncing works? Because I think that's really smart or like clever or something. They're doing it through like the SwiftKey keyboard, right?

• 6:28Nilay Patel?

  Uh, yeah.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is wild.

• 6:30Nilay Patel?

  It integrates the keyboard and it's just powered directly into iOS and Android, powers right into Office. So do you have to be running SwiftKey as your keyboard on iOS?

• 6:40Speaker 02

  If you want to use it in a non-Microsoft app, I imagine, yeah.

• 6:42Speaker 01

  But it's interesting because a lot of people use SwiftKey.

• 6:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Outside of like direct ones made by Apple and Google.

• 6:49Nilay Patel?

  It's beginning to make sense.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Popular ones.

• 6:51Nilay Patel?

  Why Microsoft bought all the little iOS apps that it bought.

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 6:54Nilay Patel?

  It's starting to like figure out ways that those things form an ecosystem.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 6:58Nilay Patel?

  Is a meta layer over the Apple ecosystem.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's it's very similar to Google's approach in a lot of ways from back in the day, which is to make services and apps and not. Or even even like a layer deeper than Google. It's not even to make the services, it's to make the apps that live everywhere and then have everyone else supply the services and the hardware.

• 7:17Nilay Patel?

  And then like through it.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Like the best email app on iOS is Outlook. The best calendar app on iOS is probably Outlook. And if Microsoft can replicate that with other stuff and tie it in with Cortana.

• 7:28Nilay Patel?

  I'm really mad that you brought this up. Like, I'm furious at you.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  What?

• 7:33Nilay Patel?

  Because you reminded me that Sunrise is dead.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Sorry about that.

• 7:36Nilay Patel?

  No, but it's not as good. It is.

• 7:42Nilay Patel?

  Some Outlook is like Sunrise. If Sunrise was constantly bothering you about not visiting, it's like. You know, like you have that friend who's like, I was like, come over. And you're like, I don't want to go over there.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  I didn't have that friend. I didn't have any friends. I mean, let's be clear. I was eating lunch by myself.

• 7:57Nilay Patel?

  It's also depressing. Tom's like, I'm gonna make you think about death. And I'm like, Dieter, I'm gonna make you think about not having friends.

• 8:04Nilay Patel?

  No, but like it's Sunrise with more nagging about the Microsoft ecosystem.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  I don't like that. That's Microsoft's strategy.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Buy these good apps and then have them nag you about the Microsoft ecosystem.

• 8:15Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's not everyone's strategy. But what we were talking about right before you came on the show was all of Microsoft's competitors, if you grant, and this will be annoying, but if you grant that. The most important, at least in the US, computing platform that people carry around is their phone, particularly the iPhone and iOS. Then all of Microsoft's competitors, their big competitors, have home screen icons. So obviously, Amazon has the Amazon app. People use the hell out of it. Facebook has its variety of apps, particularly the big blue Facebook app and Instagram. Google has YouTube. I think it's, Google also comes at you through Safari, which is really interesting. Microsoft has

• 8:58Nilay Patel?

  to be there. And I think their whole thing is, well, if you use a Windows PC, we're gonna, we're gonna ask that you install Cortana, and suddenly your Windows PC is coming at you through this app on your home screen. That's a big move for them.

• 9:11Speaker 02

  Well, also, suddenly, you are already in Cortana. You should just use Cortana, and so does Siri.

• 9:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and then you're just gonna start using Bing.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:19Nilay Patel?

  And then the dream of bomber will come alive. I think that's hard. Like, that, those are hard bets, but they're really interesting bets. And also, I think Windows is a desktop computing platform. They announced a new design language for it called Fluent that extends all the way into like their HoloLens stuff. That's, it's, it's kinda looks like a lot like Material Design.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like if Material Design ran into Metro and Vista. Like, the glassiness of Vista and the depth of Material Design.

• 9:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Like, the base of Metro.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  The fact that it runs on mixed reality is the thing that gets me excited. Like, Material Design has layers. So like, this thing sits on top of this thing, and you move them around. Like, digital paper. That's the whole idea of Material Design. That's what Microsoft basically just bit it. But it's more interesting for Microsoft to have layers of a UI. And like, if you look at the more recent piece that we just put up about like, the email app and everything else, there's like, hella drop shadows. Like, crazy, like, giant shadows everywhere. And you're like, this looks like crap. I wouldn't want this on my screen. No. But you definitely want it in mixed reality. You definitely want those drop shadows that give the thing a sense of physicality in place. And so, to

• 10:31Speaker 02

  me, Fluent is a unified design language across a desktop and HoloLens and a VR headset or a mixed reality headset. And that is incredibly smart, because they take the idea Make a digital object a physical thing. And then they take it to the place where digital objects are like closest to being like physical things, which is mixed reality. And for them to have developed a design language where they can maintain some kind of consistency across Windows and mixed reality is really smart because you look at classic Windows, the classic Metro design. The whole thing was designed originally on the Zune. And then for Windows Phone. R I P. And it was designed to be incredibly flat, quote unquote, digital native, no layers,

• 11:16Speaker 02

  just like, just, just black flatness. And it was like, really smart for the time. But there is no way I would want to use that sort of style of things out in the virtual reality or mixed reality or augmented reality or whatever. What's, what's the fourth one? There's augmented, mixed, virtual, and something else. Actual.

• 11:35Nilay Patel?

  Actual.

• 11:36Speaker 02

  No.

• 11:36Nilay Patel?

  It's the real world.

• 11:38Speaker 02

  Whatever. Anyway, I think. Depressing. I really, I really hype about the stuff they announced at Build today. Relentless reality. Like, this is, tell me how much, like, look at what they're doing with their desktop O S. And tell me that Sierra on the Mac is a tenth as exciting as this. Just in terms of like the ideas of what they're trying to achieve.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  The movement part of this is what's really cool to me is, um, so they have all these, they have five different aspects that come into their design language. And we don't have to get into all the design.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  No, name all five. Name all five from memory.

• 12:11Speaker 03

  From memory, okay, here we go.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 12:14Nilay Patel?

  It's okay, it's a pre-recorded audio show, no one will ever know.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  Okay, if you actually want to know what it is, it's light, depth, motion, material, and scale.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  I like that they snuck in material as one of the things, even though Google's is called material, they're like, you have material? That's just one part of our world. Anyway, keep going.

• 12:31Speaker 03

  But the motion is what's really cool to me and kind of goes with what you're saying, Dieter, is, um, we have a post up on the site now where you can see, we took screenshots of pretty much everything we could find in this preview video. And one of the screenshots we captured, and there's three different views, is a desktop that some people were speculating is like a holographic desktop. And it looks awesome, like so many different layers to it. You just, I actually just looking even at the flat bit of it, I'm like, I want to reach out and just be like, I want to grab it, I want to touch it. And it's clear they're thinking about that and it's really cool.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think if, ah, this is like a wild speculation, but if they, they're going to do it in mixed reality, if they start doing it with their tablets.

• 13:10Nilay Patel?

  So the tablets have like some motion tracking a little bit where you move them around and like.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Like Tango.

• 13:16Nilay Patel?

  Like Tango. Well Tango out in the world, but like actually on the screen. So you're moving the thing and the interface of elements move. There's a little bit of that going on on the iPhone. It's for show, but if they start to find ways to make it useful. That's really cool. I'm into it. Um, I was just gonna say something about this design. I totally lost my.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  You want you want to talk about graph? Why they they call it the Microsoft graph?

• 13:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's because it's made of graphite, I think. No, so okay, Microsoft graph. So there's all these crazy Windows stuff happening. It's really interesting. I I do think there's a big piece of it where they didn't they don't have a platform. They can't announce a bunch of updates to Windows Phone and have anybody care. They can announce a bunch of updates to Windows and have a lot of people care. Um, because it everything they do to make Windows better makes like work better. And that's Microsoft's whole mission is like make you more productive. So they're layering all these crazy new features onto Windows. Graph to me, graph is a really loaded term in the tech industry.

• 14:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:18Nilay Patel?

  So Facebook has a social graph. That's Facebook's. Like value in the world is it the social graph that it builds your your your connections to friends, what you like. What you scroll past, the video data, when you watch videos on Facebook, all that stuff becomes your social graph. And Facebook can use that data to do whatever it wants to do. Throw elections and governments around the world. Google has a knowledge graph, which is its map of the web and your activity on the web. And that is their proprietary data set. Actually, Microsoft. Often complains that Google should be like broken up or heavily regulated, particularly by European governments.

• 14:58Nilay Patel?

  Because their knowledge graph is so superior that people will use Google and make it better and not use Bing. So Bing is at a disadvantage because of the value of Google's knowledge graph. This is actually an argument they make to like European authorities. When you make that argument in the United States, people like. They're like, whatever, compete in Europe. They're like, oh, it's interesting.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  Let us let us take a month long holiday.

• 15:24Nilay Patel?

  We'll eat cheese and think about this. I don't know why I'm rushing that. Anyway,

• 15:28Nilay Patel?

  the whole thing, for Microsoft to roll out a product that it's calling Windows Graph has an enormous set of, we don't know what they are, but it has this enormous set of implications at what it's going to start doing. And in the video, in the demos, if you go watch the video of the demo, Joe Balfiore is onstage and he's like opening a document and then he goes to another computer and he says Cortana, our AI in the cloud is going to show you stuff from the Windows Graph. All of that implies they are taking your data, your user data from the computer, they're putting it in the cloud and they're doing something with it to then show you some other stuff. Now,

• 16:08Nilay Patel?

  that something could be nothing. It could just be AI marketing babble and all they're really doing is saying, hey, our cloud service noticed that you had this document open over here and we're going to ask you if you want to open it over here, which is basically all continuity does, right? Apple sends your stuff in the cloud, you open another device. But if it's actually AI and it's actually a graph, that means they're scanning and analyzing your data or aggregating your data and analyzing a huge set of it, which is what you actually want to do for machine learning. And that to me becomes like controversial and fascinating and super interesting all at once.

• 16:44Speaker 02

  Right. Implicit.

• 16:49Nilay Patel?

  Well, Dieter, that's.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  Leave that voice cracking, Andrew.

• 16:53Nilay Patel?

  Implicit in the word graph, especially when you look at the knowledge graph on Google, but also the social graph, isn't just here's a giant corpus of data that we can use to mine stuff. It's we actually understand the contents of this data. So it's easier to explain with Google. With Google, they don't just have a knowledge graph of like NBA players and their names and their heights. They like, they know what it means that this NBA player is this tall. They like.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  Does it mean that they're better?

• 17:19Nilay Patel?

  That means they're better. Yeah. They can compare the height of an NBA player to Tom Cruise because like you could say is so and so taller than Tom Cruise and they not, don't just have a bunch of information you can specifically ask for, but they can do stuff with that information and like string together more complex things together for more complex queries. And if Microsoft is purporting to do the same thing with literally everything you do on your computer.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  That's interesting and terrifying.

• 17:48Nilay Patel?

  Right, like, do you need an incognito mode for using your computer? So that Microsoft services don't see whatever you might be doing.

• 17:55Speaker 03

  Just never use Cortana on your iPhone.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  We haven't even hit, like, half of the stuff they announced today.

• 18:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, keep going. What else is there? No, I don't think it's don't use Cortana on your iPhone. It's like, if you have a Windows computer, is Microsoft watching you? Like, that's a question that's now open because of the gra- and, like, do you need a button that says, "Stop watching me"?

• 18:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, if it's by default, opt in.

• 18:15Nilay Patel?

  Right, yeah. Anyway, what else? We don't know the answers to any of those questions, but just naming it graph, and then suggesting that an AI is gonna help you interpret that graph and put it elsewhere, I think opens the door to many, many questions. What else?

• 18:30Speaker 02

  Oh, they have new VR controllers.

• 18:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  Which seem cool. What's cool about them?

• 18:35Speaker 01

  They're VR motion controllers. They're very accurate. They have, like, individual finger sensing, I think.

• 18:39Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 18:40Nilay Patel?

  Oh, you don't need cameras.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  You don't need cameras. The cameras are on the headset and all the lights, like, point at the headset. So you can, like, go into another room and not have to set up an entire VR cave.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  They're also, like, cheap.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 18:52Speaker 01

  The entry-level bundle for the cheapest headset and the controllers is, I think, $400 from Acer?

• 18:59Nilay Patel?

  There's one Acer and one HP, I think. I mean, they're pushing-

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, Acer.

• 19:03Nilay Patel?

  They're pushing a virtual reality is really interesting because they refuse to say virtual reality. They only say mixed reality to mean everything. I think Addie was like, "You're just making this more confusing." But they're pushing it really hard. It's one of the things that they do that, in particular, Apple doesn't do, and Google, with Daydream, I think, is...

• 19:25Nilay Patel?

  It's weird to me that Google doesn't push Daydream harder, like-

• 19:28Speaker 02

  I think that they wanted to, and Samsung was like, "Hmm, no thanks."

• 19:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  And so, like, they're on, like, a bunch of random phones, and who cares?

• 19:38Nilay Patel?

  Can you buy a Pixel right now? This is my odd- you can? Let's find out.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 19:41Nilay Patel?

  Let's angrily type-

• 19:42Speaker 02

  Are you gonna buy another Pixel on the Vergecast?

• 19:44Nilay Patel?

  If I can get one. Anyway, their big push in virtual reality is, Ashley was saying, they're doing a bunch of really interesting UI stuff to make that actually a platform for something other than games, which I think is fascinating. And then these controllers, their whole thing is, you can buy a virtual reality headset from us for, like, $3.99?

• 20:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:04Nilay Patel?

  And you buy the controllers, you get a camera, so suddenly this becomes something you might actually use.

• 20:09Speaker 03

  And you don't need a phone.

• 20:11Nilay Patel?

  You don't have a phone.

• 20:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  Which is awesome.

• 20:13Nilay Patel?

  But I think you need a computer for the 399.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  You need a computer, not for the holons, but you need a computer for the VR headsets.

• 20:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so it's different, but computers are better than phones. If there's one thing that Virg cast listeners know, it's that phones are stupid and giant computers are better.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  It's 399 for the controllers and the headset is still way cheaper than basically any other full scale VR thing on the market. And you don't need to set up cameras.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, which is great.

• 20:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 02

  So there's Windows Store news too, right?

• 20:40Speaker 01

  There is Windows Store news. iTunes is coming to the Windows Store.

• 20:45Speaker 03

  Okay, wait, the audience literally, when they announce it, everyone goes, ooh. It was the most audible reaction of the entire presentation.

• 20:56Nilay Patel?

  The five inch pixel is out of stock. Ah, what are you doing? Anyway, sorry. Um, so Tom made a good point, which is iTunes is still one that people use.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  I use iTunes all the time.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Why do you use iTunes?

• 21:09Speaker 01

  I have an iPhone and I use Apple Music. And when you combine those two, you're left with iTunes.

• 21:15Nilay Patel?

  I use Apple Music on my iPhone and I.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  I have a computer too.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you want to listen to music on your computer, what do you do?

• 21:21Nilay Patel?

  I pull out my phone.

• 21:25Nilay Patel?

  But iTunes is one of the most searched apps for in the store.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:29Nilay Patel?

  They didn't need to put it there before because who cares? But they're doing Windows 10 S, which is locked to the store and locked in a bunch of other really interesting ways.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, we gotta talk about that.

• 21:38Nilay Patel?

  And so if you're going to sell a Surface Laptop and you don't have iTunes in your store, people, you have what with the phone, we used to call the Instagram problem, which is people would download, download a Windows phone. That's how you buy those. Uh, you, they would purchase a Windows phone and they would go to download Instagram and it wouldn't be there. So here they're, they're trying to solve that problem upfront. It's just funny that they're big like, it's in the store was like, Apple is here with iTunes. Everyone's favorite app that never makes your computers.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  They need it, they need it for the iPhone, right?

• 22:08Nilay Patel?

  I think it's worth talking about 10 S. We talked about.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  We gotta get into that, but actually the other entree into that is, uh, tell us what the other thing is that's coming to the, uh, Windows Store.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  So other than iTunes, the other thing coming is Linux. There are three Linux distros that are going to be available to just download on the Windows Store and run straight like as a Windows windowed version of the operating system on your desktop.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 22:30Speaker 01

  Ubuntu, SUSE Linux and Fedora, which are three of the biggest ones.

• 22:34Nilay Patel?

  Are they going to run it on 10 S?

• 22:35Speaker 02

  I thought it was, I don't know.

• 22:36Speaker 01

  I think it's SUSE.

• 22:37Speaker 02

  I believe you.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  That's how they set it on stage.

• 22:39Speaker 02

  Okay. That's it then.

• 22:40Nilay Patel?

  But that's a deep.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  In my head, I always pronounce it Seuss.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  But especially for those running on the XS for education, like, this is a big thing.

• 22:48Nilay Patel?

  Are they virtualized?

• 22:49Speaker 01

  I don't think they're virtualized. I think they can just run natively side by side in like a window.

• 22:55Nilay Patel?

  It's very, so the tent, we're just gonna get into it.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Okay, no, so the, the deal with XS.

• 23:01Nilay Patel?

  We're just gonna get into it now.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  If you listen to the show, you probably already know.

• 23:04Nilay Patel?

  Dieter and I have been trying to get into it for like a day.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  It is deeply locked down in a way that is very, very similar to iOS. You can't, uh, pick a different browser. If you do manage to install a different browser, if like Chrome ever comes to it, it can't run a different rendering engine. It has to run Microsoft's browser rendering engine, just like iOS. You can't install stuff outside the store unless you pay the 50 bucks to upgrade. And of course, Microsoft takes a 30% cut of all apps.

• 23:32Nilay Patel?

  Wait, the 50 bucks to upgrade unlocks the whole, it just turns into Windows Pro.

• 23:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:36Nilay Patel?

  So if you pay the 50 bucks upgrade, you can use it.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  You can do all those stuff, right.

• 23:39Speaker 01

  It's not like Windows RT where you're stuck with whatever RMs were in the store.

• 23:44Speaker 02

  It is unless you pay the 50 bucks.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. But.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  When you pay the 50 bucks, then it's magic.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's a full desktop computer. It's still running full Intel hardware. It's just software locked.

• 23:53Speaker 02

  But it's locked down in very, very similar ways to the way iOS is locked down.

• 23:58Nilay Patel?

  So my question.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  What's fascinating about Linux is one of the ways iOS is locked down is you cannot install an app that has, that runs code.

• 24:07Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 24:08Speaker 02

  Like you can't install apps that runs other JavaScript. You can't install like an app that like will let you create apps or like, like do, you can't run arbitrary code inside your app. And.

• 24:18Nilay Patel?

  Well, there's like Swift playgrounds.

• 24:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 24:21Nilay Patel?

  Come on. But. You can write baby apps in Swift.

• 24:25Speaker 02

  This is the first like thing that we've heard since they announced Windows XS where Microsoft Windows XS is significantly more like liberal and open in its App Store policies than iOS is.

• 24:37Nilay Patel?

  I think it's strange that they're gonna let you run a full-on Linux distro in a non-virtualized environment. That's a question.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:44Nilay Patel?

  Question mark.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  It's, it's not entirely clear how it's working.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  But it's like, they won't let Google run a web.

• 24:50Nilay Patel?

  Browsing engine, but you can just light up Linux and go.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  I mean, I can tell you.

• 24:55Speaker 02

  It's weird, right? I don't know.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Here's what I got. I can tell you that it will allow you to run command line developer tools and it will have the same command line utilities as a native Ubuntu environment.

• 25:05Nilay Patel?

  So the open questions here.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  Because you can install Ubuntu on Windows 10 Pro right now, but you gotta like go through a whole developer tool process.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is, this is, you have to install a Windows subsystem for Linux, which is an optional component, which is a one-click install, and then you can download them from the store.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Sounds to me like that shit's running native code, my friend.

• 25:23Nilay Patel?

  It sounds to me like there's an open question here about whether this will run on Tennesse at all.

• 25:27Speaker 02

  Right. Well, I've been trying to find out. I don't know.

• 25:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that's been like the outstanding question and we don't necessarily have an answer, but if it can, that's big because like a lot of STEM education is focused on using Linux for coding, CompSci, engineering math, like people run Linux.

• 25:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  And that's big for an education device to make it this easy to do.

• 25:51Nilay Patel?

  I think the, the big question is like, is this gonna run on Tennesse or do you need the, the full version? So Tom is at Build. As I rattle off these random questions I don't have the answer to.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  He's listening to us somehow magically.

• 26:02Nilay Patel?

  I want you to know that I'm also quietly slacking them to Tom. It's a thing that's happening in real time on this show as we record. The, the, the graph question is something I want us to aggressively pursue. So Tom is actually asking those questions right now. The Linux thing is a little deeper and longer. We'll, we'll try to follow up on that as well.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  Yo, there's a, there's a real genuine giant Clippy at Build, like in a suit.

• 26:24Nilay Patel?

  There's a thing, all of these things, Windows everywhere, Cortana helping you out of the blue, the even, even fluent design, all of those things are old Microsoft ideas in shiny new clothes, right? Like Cortana is just like, it looks like you had a document open. Like that's fucking Clippy. Right? It's, it's just, it's like Clippy, only they're like, it's AI now. That's what it is.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Was Clippy always AI?

• 26:51Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Plot twist.

• 26:55Nilay Patel?

  Fluent Design is like this. Arrow. It looks like.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  That's the original vision of Vista, like a full 3D desktop where things can live on different layers. That is the original Vista demo.

• 27:05Nilay Patel?

  Here's what I'm most proud of.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  That never happened.

• 27:07Nilay Patel?

  And I really hope they did this. I really in my heart. One superpower computer and everybody else was like, yeah, no. And they turned it off. They announced Metro as a design language. Everyone loved it and they didn't pay the grocery store that owned the trademark on the word Metro and they had to kill the name and they have been lost in a sea of bad names ever since. And I just desperately hope someone asked the lawyer before they were like, it's called Fluent Design because there's undoubtedly another grocery store out there that's gonna fuck them up. That's the story of Microsoft's name. Pay the grocery store. But Fluent Design is a throwback to all the things they used to do. What was the third one? Windows Everywhere. Putting Windows everywhere and like layering

• 27:48Nilay Patel?

  features onto Windows. My Tom had a scoop a couple of days ago that they're gonna do Windows Home Hub, which turns like dormant Windows computers into voice activated speakers. That is, that is the most classic Microsoft. Like you're interested in Amazon Echo? What if your Windows PC could do that instead? Sort of worse. Isn't that better? That all there's just like they're the same Microsoft ideas. I think they're expressed in a much better way and they're much more interesting in a certain way. But like the throwback nature of particularly the Cortana Clippy thing is, were you working on something on

• 28:31Nilay Patel?

  your other computer? I can open that right up for you. Like, is that gonna be super useful? I don't know.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  Everyone misses Clippy. So.

• 28:40Nilay Patel?

  People love Clippy.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  I think that's a rose tinted glasses thing.

• 28:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we had, I don't think we've come all the way around. All right. I'm gonna read an ad. Speaking of the Echo, is there anything left to talk about? There's the Cortana speakers. Oh, that's a good segue. Next thing you want to talk about?

• 28:52Speaker 03

  Well, and there's also the pen.

• 28:54Nilay Patel?

  And there's the pen stuff.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  There's the pen stuff.

• 28:55Nilay Patel?

  Let's do the pen stuff.

• 28:56Speaker 01

  Story remix.

• 28:57Nilay Patel?

  Story remix is like, okay, so tell us what story remix is.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  So Story Remix is-

• 29:03Nilay Patel?

  Is it super obvious that Dieter and I crammed like little nerds before the show? And are now eager to show the teacher that we know what we learned?

• 29:11Speaker 03

  I'm so impressed by you guys. I'm like, wow, they really must have done well in college.

• 29:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we had flashcards for 30 minutes and we definitely learned everything before the test.

• 29:21Speaker 01

  You can't even tell.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  So, so Story Remix is not that Microsoft is adding Stories to Windows.

• 29:29Nilay Patel?

  Which is a huge bummer.

• 29:31Speaker 01

  Which is unfortunate, but somehow the company will survive.

• 29:35Speaker 02

  They used to have a thing where little heads would pop up near the taskbar.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  That's actually, that is this Windows update where you're getting, you're getting like little chat heads on your, on your taskbar now.

• 29:45Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  That's the Spring Creators Update.

• 29:49Nilay Patel?

  Every season comes with a new set of chat heads.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  Is next year gonna be like not a Creators Update? Is next year gonna be an Innovators Update? Cause you can't do the Spring Creators Update again.

• 30:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, or just every-

• 30:02Speaker 01

  Or just do the Spring, the Spring 2018 Creators Update.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  They're just, we're gonna get a different buzzword every year.

• 30:07Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, Story, whatever it's called, Story Mix.

• 30:09Speaker 01

  Story Remix is actually the most creator oriented thing in the, in the Fall Creators Update.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  It's a little bit like if you took the automated videos from Google Photos and you kind of combined it with Windows Movie Maker into this like weird amalgamation. Is this is what would come out?

• 30:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  So you can just take pictures and dump them in there and it'll create you automatic videos like Google Photos. But there's like a lot of editing stuff you can do also on top of that up to and including full like 3D stuff from some of the 3D stuff from the Spring Creators Update. Will be implemented in, so they have like a thing where like there's a kid running on a playground and they turn it into a kid running from a dinosaur that's just been seamlessly dropped in in a full CGI environment.

• 30:57Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's like little baby Snapchat filters in AR, right?

• 31:00Speaker 02

  Cause like Snapchat, you can attach emoji to a thing and then it'll follow the thing around.

• 31:03Speaker 01

  So it's like that with full 3D, with full 3D rendering in a video app and also the automatic videos from Google Photos. A lot of it's going to come down to how it actually works.

• 31:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  When people can try it out, but it could mean, it could be like interesting. Like, there's a whole, like, YouTube thing of the classic, you know, blue title with the white text.

• 31:23Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my god.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Windows Movie Maker opening, so.

• 31:26Nilay Patel?

  And now that all that blue, white text and blue opening will be animated dinosaurs.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Animated dinosaurs.

• 31:31Nilay Patel?

  That's the default. So, Ashley, you're really into, I know the filters and the AR stuff. Like, the person I know who's most up on what Snapchat is doing in AR.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  I'm always up on the filters.

• 31:41Nilay Patel?

  Is Ashley Carmen.

• 31:44Nilay Patel?

  I have a real question, like, I don't, I used to use iMovie a lot, it was a thing. Like, I'd be like, I have all my photos, I used to iPhoto a lot. Like, I have my photos, I'm using my PC, I'm gonna edit them. And now I just use either Google Photos, or I do all the sort of movie creation inside of the apps that let you do it in real time. Is there, like, an inch, is there, like, a gateway from doing that to, I'm gonna download video on my computer and do some AR filters there and then send it back out again?

• 32:10Speaker 03

  Well, with, like, Story Remix, and also I think this kind of goes in with Apple Clips, and then you also have, like, Haya mentioned, the Google Photos, and also Apple's Photo Montage. Oh, my god. I think that, honestly, this is all just for kids. Like, YouTube creators, I'm sorry, but the YouTube game has changed.

• 32:30Nilay Patel?

  Whoa.

• 32:30Speaker 03

  Like, if you're using.

• 32:31Nilay Patel?

  Step it up, kids.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  If you're using Movie Maker and you're trying to be an influencer on YouTube, it's not gonna happen for you. Like, sorry.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  That's the podcast, everybody. It's, it's not gonna go well for you.

• 32:43Speaker 03

  But it's fun for kids, and it's fun for moms.

• 32:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, this, this thing seems designed for moms and dads.

• 32:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 32:50Speaker 03

  Even the demo was a dad being like, "We gotta send this to mom, you're riding a tricycle."

• 32:55Speaker 01

  That's pretty much.

• 32:56Nilay Patel?

  You're never gonna make it, kid.

• 32:58Speaker 03

  That was actually the exact demo in that voice.

• 33:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I think, to me, it's like using the pen to draw on the soccer ball and then turning the soccer ball into, like, a fireball.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Super dad move.

• 33:08Nilay Patel?

  Is it, like, is it any move?

• 33:10Speaker 03

  Dads would find that cool.

• 33:11Speaker 01

  That's a kid move, like.

• 33:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  I would, I would have done that when I was a kid, if I had it available.

• 33:16Nilay Patel?

  But the steps to do that is, like, they were showing, the other demo was the soccer game, and it was, we, we took all of the video from all the parents and put them in here, and then it made one giant video, and that just seems still, like, many, many steps. And I, to me, the whole. The whole momentum of this industry, like the movie editing consumer industry, is removing all the steps between you capturing, editing, and sharing.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:43Nilay Patel?

  And so Clips, to me, is another... I think Casey has tweeted, "Why did Apple make Clips like 500 times?" Like, it's a step between you and the sharer, and I think any app that fits in that zone either needs to do a lot or not exist. I don't know. I'm babbling.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:59Nilay Patel?

  There's one more thing.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  There's pen stuff, like, the pen works better in more places, whatever.

• 34:04Speaker 03

  Dan, the resident Surface user, was psyched about the pen stuff. Basically, Microsoft's sponsored it.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  That's why Dan's not on the show today. Dan, if you're listening, that was your mistake.

• 34:13Speaker 03

  He was so excited, guys. He was so excited.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  And then Cortana speaker, the Harman Kardon made one or something?

• 34:20Nilay Patel?

  I don't understand that at all.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  They're making one in the fall.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  They're making one in the fall.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  It's not out yet. There's no price or release date other than fall, but it is a Cortana Amazon Echo. It looks like an Amazon Echo.

• 34:29Nilay Patel?

  I don't understand this. Like, I get that you want to be in the game, you have an assistant, and you're Microsoft, and like, you just let people do stuff. What is the differentiation between that and the Echo? Like, I know what Google's differentiation is.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  The speaker is better, because it's a Harman Kardon.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  The speaker is actually better. It has...

• 34:46Nilay Patel?

  But Lenovo has that same argument.

• 34:47Speaker 02

  You can't see this, but I just pointed at Hyam and looked at Neelai in the eyes. I was like, "See?"

• 34:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and the thing is...

• 34:53Speaker 01

  Amazon speaker has one mid-range and one tweeter. The Harman Kardon has three of each is one of the main differentiators.

• 34:59Speaker 02

  What's up?

• 35:00Speaker 01

  It also has Skype built in, which is interesting in the context of the Amazon Echo View with the whole...

• 35:08Nilay Patel?

  Show.

• 35:09Speaker 02

  Damn it.

• 35:10Nilay Patel?

  Echo Show. We'll get into that in a second. Okay.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  So close.

• 35:13Nilay Patel?

  Almost.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  It should be called the Echo View.

• 35:19Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna read this ad, then we're gonna talk about the Echo thing.

• 35:22Nilay Patel?

  "This episode of Verchass is brought to you by Tile. What if you could find anything in seconds? Now you can with Tile, the tiny Bluetooth tracker that makes finding things easier than ever. Just attach a Tile to your keys, your wallet, your laptop, even your bike. Anything you don't want to lose, and finding things becomes easy. Just open the free Tile app on your phone to see your lost item on the map. Then quickly find your item by making your Tile ring, and it'll be back in your hands in seconds." Assuming that you're close enough to get there in seconds. Minutes is also possible, but you'll be backing your hands. And if it's your phone that's missing, just double press on your Tile to make your phone ring, even if your phone's unsilent. Every day, over 2 million lost items are located with Tile, so join the millions who have used Tile to help find their lost stuff.

• 36:02Nilay Patel?

  Get yours today at gettile.com/verge and save up to 30% per Tile on a multi-pack. Plus, you get free shipping. And because Tile makes a perfect gift, for a limited time, there's a free gift box with a multi-pack order. So, go to gettile.com/verge. That's gettile.com/verge.

• 36:25Speaker 03

  I know some Tile loyalists.

• 36:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 36:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, they love it.

• 36:28Nilay Patel?

  Do they try to, do they find their phones with the Tile? Or do they find the Tiles with the phones?

• 36:32Speaker 03

  They find their wallets.

• 36:34Nilay Patel?

  Ooh.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Tile loyalists, they have to get you to use Tile, because Tile works, the more people who use Tile, the more useful it becomes to everyone who uses it, because it's crowd, it's like a crowd mesh Bluetooth. I think they call it mesh GPS or something, where it doesn't use GPS, but anyone who has Tile and Bluetooth open can sense other Tiles.

• 36:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so if you leave your wallet at the office, but I have Tile, it, without giving me your personal information and vice versa, my phone will see that your Tile's there and then let you know where it is.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  I'm definitely putting Tiles everywhere around you all the time.

• 37:11Speaker 02

  I know where Dieter is.

• 37:13Nilay Patel?

  Okay, let's talk about the Echo Show. So, Ash, do you want to walk us through that one?

• 37:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, so this week, you know, lots of us love the Amazon Echo, but Amazon has decided that we're sick of using our voices for everything, and we don't, we need a screen. So, this week, was it two weeks ago that Amazon introduced the Echo Look?

• 37:33Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 37:33Speaker 03

  Okay, that was the camera that's supposed to tell you if you look good, depending on your clothes, and give you recommendations. This is now the Echo.

• 37:40Nilay Patel?

  The most troubling Echo of all time.

• 37:43Speaker 03

  This is now the Echo show that introduced this week, which costs $230. It is basically just a tablet speaker. It has a basically a screen with Echo.

• 37:55Nilay Patel?

  It doesn't look good. The more I look at the pictures of it.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  I've seen products that look like this before. And actually, there's one company who's particularly very enraged about this.

• 38:04Nilay Patel?

  Really? Which company?

• 38:05Speaker 03

  Uh, Nucleus.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  Ooh, yeah.

• 38:07Speaker 03

  I got a very angry email about Amazon from them. But it's kind of like supposed to be the new age intercom, I think, as well.

• 38:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, I'm.

• 38:16Speaker 02

  Cause it makes calls to other Echoes.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 02

  And you can intercom within the house.

• 38:19Speaker 03

  So in addition to a screen, you can make calls now.

• 38:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 38:22Speaker 03

  Within the house, but also to others.

• 38:25Nilay Patel?

  Including the app on your phone.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Right.

• 38:26Speaker 03

  It all has to go through the app. Like, you can't just call my phone number. I have to have the Amazon app, the Alexa app installed on my phone for you to call me.

• 38:35Nilay Patel?

  So if you're like in a family, you might do that.

• 38:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. But this is another example of we gotta put another app on your screen.

• 38:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:42Nilay Patel?

  And like, I'm telling you, that is just becoming the game for the big companies. Like, Amazon tried to make you a phone. That was a bad idea. Didn't go well. But how did?

• 38:56Speaker 02

  That is an understatement.

• 38:58Nilay Patel?

  It, it went the other way. Uh, but how do we put an app on your phone? Particularly your iPhone. And how do we, how do we start to capture the activities you do? So I think that's an interesting piece of this. The other thing that I think is really interesting is it doesn't run an operating system that is like a normal operating system. So it just runs Alexa Skills.

• 39:19Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:19Nilay Patel?

  It's not Fire OS.

• 39:21Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:21Nilay Patel?

  Which you were saying it.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  I think it's genius. I think if they had put like Fire OS or Android on this thing, it would have been a massive failure because people would have gone and been like, where are my tablet apps? It would have had the Instagram problem. They would have had the apps there, but then they would have used it like a tablet and then it was a thing sitting on your counter. They, they could have made this thing with like a removable tablet. That would be interesting.

• 39:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, there's a thousand ways to do this kind of thing.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  Strictly limiting it to like doing it the Alexa way with Alexa skills. It means that it's not going to be able to do as much, but you're also going to expect way less out of it. Because you expect a tablet to be as good as an iPad. And as good as Amazon's tablets are, are just not. And if they had made a removable tablet, like you would have gone to use the thing and the tablet wouldn't have been there. You would have been pissed off and it would have run FireOS, which would have like had a crash or had a bad app on it. Right. And so by stripping all of that away, they lower expectations from consumers and they make sure the thing actually works. And I think it's a way smarter strategy than just putting an app store on there. Cause you would have, if they put an app store on there, all the apps are designed for tablets.

• 40:25Speaker 02

  And so you would have like stood there and touched on it and been pissed off at it. And some of the apps are bad. And this way they just like, you don't expect any of that out of this thing. And they could also make it cheaper because they don't need a good processor in it.

• 40:36Nilay Patel?

  I think what they are open up to is.

• 40:39Speaker 02

  I'm just like, yep. We agree with each other.

• 40:45Nilay Patel?

  I think they open themselves up to comparisons with phones. I actually think it's, it's very smart to not put the full on tablet experience there that people have tablets. They actually have really large phones that are probably almost as big as the screen in this thing. But once you have a screen, the screen needs to be responsive. And if the screen is one second or one millisecond not as responsive as your phone, you're not going to use as much. Whereas you, I don't think, I have never perceived a lack of responsiveness from a voice device. Except for Siri, when, but that's like Siri, it's like Siri do stuff. And it's like, I don't, what if I don't? All the time with Siri. But the Echo, like you don't know when your Echo is slow. So I think there's like a big danger zone where if you talk to it and the screen doesn't light up right away.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:30Nilay Patel?

  There's all of that is there.

• 41:31Speaker 03

  I mean, with the phone comparison, it's like. When the Echo first came out, that was the one thing to me. My parents love their Echo. And it was always me, why can't I just say, call, you know, dad or whatever and have it call? And now we're getting that functionality, but I don't have the Amazon app on my phone or the Alexa app, whatever. So I know in the future, my mom is going to call me and say, can you download the app so that I can call you off the Echo? And it's like, oh, I don't want to do that. And I feel like Amazon is really putting people in a weird position. It's like giving us half the functionality we want. And I just don't know if it's going to work out.

• 42:10Nilay Patel?

  Well, I don't think they can give you the full functionality.

• 42:14Speaker 01

  It's possible. Microsoft's doing it with Skype on their, on the Echo knockoff. We'll be able to call through Skype, regular phone numbers.

• 42:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. But they, Amazon doesn't have that infrastructure.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  They don't.

• 42:24Speaker 03

  Right, I mean.

• 42:25Nilay Patel?

  Unless they like acquire Twilio, which they could do.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  They couldn't.

• 42:29Nilay Patel?

  Somewhere in the Twilio office, if someone was like sending me an email, they figured out how this ends for us.

• 42:37Nilay Patel?

  Trilio, by the way, the company behind Colin Oates. Yep. The single best phone hack of all time.

• 42:42Speaker 03

  What? Okay.

• 42:44Nilay Patel?

  You call a number and place a hole in it to you.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:46Nilay Patel?

  Because you're calling.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Colin Oates.

• 42:47Nilay Patel?

  Because you're calling.

• 42:48Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. Okay.

• 42:50Nilay Patel?

  For those of you.

• 42:51Speaker 03

  I'll investigate that further later.

• 42:53Nilay Patel?

  For those of you who are ironing, I got a tweet this week. I don't drive when I listen to the Birchcast. I iron religiously. So for that one person who's ironing, I want you to know that Ashley just looked at me with pure disappointment in her eyes. When I made a Colin Oates joke that I subsequently explained.

• 43:12Speaker 03

  To be fair, I asked you to explain.

• 43:13Nilay Patel?

  It's still not cool.

• 43:16Nilay Patel?

  So are you going to get an Echo shower? Are you into it? I like instinctively pre-ordered the show. I did one just now. I had no desire to preorder the look.

• 43:27Speaker 03

  See, I'm the opposite.

• 43:28Nilay Patel?

  You ordered the look.

• 43:29Speaker 03

  I didn't order it, but if I was going, like, I'm really considering it. The privacy, everyone's getting all up in arms. They're like, oh, who would think of putting a camera in their room? Like, who would do this? I'm like, I don't know. My laptop has a camera. My phone has a camera. Whatever. Does Amazon really want to see me naked? Like, okay, Amazon, go for it. I really don't care.

• 43:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 43:50Speaker 03

  Like, if you know what I wear every day, again, I don't care. And that's weird because I usually do have a lot of weird privacy things because I used to report on cybersecurity, but.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  I want fashion advice. I ask my roommates for help all the time. Like, the other day, I was in the hallway trying something on because the lighting is better. And all my roommates was like, guys, should I keep this? Should I not keep this? It would be sick if I didn't have to talk to my roommates. It would be awesome.

• 44:19Nilay Patel?

  I've never liked you anywhere.

• 44:21Speaker 03

  I mean, this is the only interaction we have, and it's really weird. So I'm like, it'd be cool if I could just ask a robot. I won't buy what Amazon suggests.

• 44:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I think that's, we talked about this when the thing came out. Like, they're trying to do a fashion thing.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 03

  That is really interesting to me. I want to dive into that more because the whole fashion industry, there's some really deep dives into this and how Amazon's coming for the fashion industry.

• 44:45Nilay Patel?

  We should send you on a stakeout of their weird little photo studio in Brooklyn.

• 44:49Speaker 03

  Yes, I would love that.

• 44:50Nilay Patel?

  I've definitely met some, like, very Brooklyn photographers at bars who, like, are very excited to tell me that they work for Amazon. And I'm like, I work for The Verge. And they're like, we're gone.

• 45:05Nilay Patel?

  Where did you go? How did someone with that much hair disappear so quickly?

• 45:12Nilay Patel?

  I didn't even feel the wind.

• 45:13Speaker 03

  But my parents are psyched about this product.

• 45:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, because for them, their Echo sits in the kitchen. Sure, why not add a screen to it? They'll take the other Echo into the office or whatever.

• 45:22Speaker 02

  I mean, I'm trying to learn how to cook. And if Cin can show me recipes, I'll be pretty pumped. Because we have an iPad sitting in the kitchen that we never use. Because, but that was ostensibly the idea, is I would put a recipe on it and learn how to cook from it. But that, like, but something simpler that I could, like, just put the thing on.

• 45:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:37Speaker 02

  And I don't have to have, like, an iPad and a weird-ass iPad mount, which is what I have now.

• 45:40Nilay Patel?

  Do you have one of the cabinet ones?

• 45:42Speaker 02

  It's like, the one that, like, hangs on a rail.

• 45:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:44Speaker 02

  I had to, like, take a Dremel to the back of it to hide the cords. So I did the whole thing.

• 45:48Speaker 03

  Amazon's recipes come from other developers, right? Like, Amazon doesn't have its own bank.

• 45:53Nilay Patel?

  No, and what, they also have a YouTube integration with this, with this thing.

• 45:57Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 45:58Nilay Patel?

  Which is fascinating. And I think they said, like, Netflix and Amazon are possible as well, which is like...

• 46:03Speaker 02

  It's possible, but they'd have to do it, like...

• 46:06Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:07Nilay Patel?

  Because anybody can just make a skill. Yeah, yeah. But they, they're out in the, they're launching with YouTube. Which is interesting because Amazon and Google, like, you don't think of them as

• 46:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:16Nilay Patel?

  like, immediate partners, but it'd be great if they had, like, a Twitch skill. It's like, just show me video games. Other people playing video games.

• 46:24Nilay Patel?

  But I think it's really like the recipe thing with YouTube is like really smart. Like that's, that's a way to go. I think Netflix, like, why would you ask it to play Netflix at you? And like stand there and watch Netflix, but I think the recipe thing is really interesting. I think the part I cook a lot and I read off an iPad. It's you get one tick closer to, man, I wish this had a web browser so I could just look at a list of things.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:50Nilay Patel?

  And I think that's going to be something they have to solve.

• 46:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:53Speaker 03

  But it's on the developers, right?

• 46:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, but they gotta, like, a web browser's gotta be on the thing, right?

• 46:58Nilay Patel?

  The web browsing skill.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  You can't make a web browsing skill.

• 47:00Speaker 03

  No, but the way they lay out the stuff.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  I feel like that's not allowed.

• 47:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but it's, so it's not an OS. Like, that's the thing. It's not an OS. So you're tightly limited.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  I mean, there is an OS. There's gotta be like a real time OS.

• 47:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but it's on consumer facing.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  It's just not, it's not Android or Fire. It's Alexa.

• 47:17Nilay Patel?

  It's five dribbles.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  They're just running as fast as they can.

• 47:20Speaker 03

  Not included.

• 47:21Nilay Patel?

  It's four dumb dribbles and one that understands English.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  Her name is Alexa.

• 47:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, like Alexa, she's like, what?

• 47:33Nilay Patel?

  I'm sorry.

• 47:34Speaker 03

  Oh, we didn't even talk about drop-in.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:37Speaker 03

  That's the big thing. So drop-in is the video calling aspect where, um, what did Google call theirs?

• 47:44Nilay Patel?

  Knock, knock.

• 47:44Speaker 02

  Knock, knock.

• 47:45Speaker 03

  It's sort of like knock, knock where you give certain people permission to just quote unquote, drop in on your home. And so when they call you for 10 seconds, they get a frosted, and this is the description I keep saying, frosted glass view, which I'm like kind of unclear on how frosted this frosted is, but it's like, you can't see everything. And then as long as you don't deny it, they'll get the full view of your house.

• 48:11Nilay Patel?

  I don't think that's it.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  That is, that is, nope.

• 48:14Speaker 03

  No, I'm pretty sure it's default.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  Drop-in is people you whitelist. You get 10 seconds to either cancel or switch to audio only.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  If you're ironing right now, I am shocked.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  I'm pretty sure it's default, yeah.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  You have to, you have to specifically whitelist the person. Google has been, uh, not Google, Amazon has been pitching this as like a thing for you to set up for like, you set up on the echo you give to your grandparents so that you can check in on them. I, I do not trust any of my friends or family to not abuse this.

• 48:42Speaker 03

  There's absolutely a zero percent chance.

• 48:44Nilay Patel?

  If I gave this to my parents, they'd be like, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing? I cannot believe you have to accept. That's terrible.

• 48:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:52Nilay Patel?

  Is there another setting? Is there?

• 48:54Speaker 01

  There's regular, there's regular video calls, which you can accept as normal. This is a special, separate video call thing, but the fact that it exists is all, and this is something they think people want to have.

• 49:03Speaker 02

  So, but Dan Seifert is over the moon for this because his, he's got little tiny kids. And like to have them not have to figure out how to like open the app on the iPad that they could just get the call from dad. He's really happy about it.

• 49:15Speaker 03

  Well, Dan lives a very different life than us, I guess.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  He told me.

• 49:17Nilay Patel?

  With children.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  I always got the great children.

• 49:20Speaker 03

  That's the most of things to fear.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  A personal detail he doesn't want me to share. But when his daughter hears FaceTime start ringing, she runs to go grab her stool from like the bathroom, takes it into the kitchen so she can get up on it and grab the iPad.

• 49:34Nilay Patel?

  Ah, that's cute. That's adorable.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:38Nilay Patel?

  I'm now horrified by drop in. And I really thought it was like, they show you a frosted glass and then like you can come over. But it's just.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  It's just like.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  You have frosted glass? If it's someone you referred, you have 10 seconds to get to that thing.

• 49:52Nilay Patel?

  Can you just make it longer? Like five minutes?

• 49:55Speaker 01

  As far as I know, no, but.

• 49:58Nilay Patel?

  Also, if you give somebody that access to your life and then you decline, you have raised so many fucking questions about what's going on. You're like, not behind the glass today, mom. Like, oh, that's so weird.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  The analogy they give is like, you give like your neighbors like a set of spare keys to your house in case of an emergency.

• 50:16Nilay Patel?

  After 10 seconds of knocking.

• 50:18Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah, no.

• 50:20Nilay Patel?

  Are you gonna give me drop in access?

• 50:21Speaker 02

  Although, funny, the, the Amazon third party, the Alexa third party thing, the Tribby? That you stuck on your fridge? Uh, I did give Neelai the Tribby app.

• 50:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  So, and we were, we were making calls with the Tribby app and like, I could like, he could like, send a message to this thing and it would show up on the e-paper display. So I'd come home and there'd be like a poop emoji on my fridge. Would, would know exactly what happened.

• 50:45Speaker 03

  Was that their main marketing message? Cause that's why Nucleus is mad. It's because they're like, we were a huge seller on Amazon. Amazon ripped off our idea of this video calling of like, kind of like the intercom of the house. And now I'm wondering, you know, with this company, Tribby.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  I'm super not worried about Tribby.

• 51:03Nilay Patel?

  I don't. Tribby is one of those moments at CES where you're like actually drunk, but you're also drunk on like gadgets. You're you're like, everything is very dry. You haven't eaten and slept in days. And you're like, this shit's fucking amazing.

• 51:18Speaker 03

  Hey, it was cute. It was cute.

• 51:20Nilay Patel?

  It was adorable.

• 51:21Speaker 02

  It had a little flag that popped out.

• 51:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that was great. The flag that popped out is the the true sign that you are like Vegas crazy at a gadget show. You're like, oh, this flag is the best. I love everything. You get home, you're like, this flag is tiny. I can't see it and it never works.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  So you're saying Tribby would have succeeded if it had a bigger flag?

• 51:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's what it needed. A huge flag. Tribby version two. It's the same, but we made the flag way bigger.

• 51:48Speaker 02

  Uh, so there's Google Home. There's a whole suite of Echo products. There's Cortana coming. If Apple doesn't do some shit at WWDC.

• 52:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:00Speaker 02

  Like, what the what the hell are they doing?

• 52:02Speaker 01

  I get the. They beat everyone to this. Like, that's the baffling thing. They had this way before everyone else.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  Right?

• 52:08Speaker 03

  Well, so there was that news this week about the Siri speaker, right?

• 52:12Speaker 02

  Right. So Gorman had the scoop, right?

• 52:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, about developers at Apple are testing.

• 52:18Speaker 02

  This thing at home.

• 52:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:19Nilay Patel?

  Here's my question. Does a Siri speaker let you send an iMessage? And if so, how do they protect other people from sending iMessages with your account? So one of the best things you can do with Siri is send an iMessage.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  My guess is yes, because it's the best thing you can do with Siri, and there is no good way for them to stop other people. I mean, the iPhone has a thing.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  Google Home will can recognize your voice, so they could do like voice recognition where it will only send it if you say it.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  So the iPhone technically has that. There is a thing on iOS where it learns, hey Siri, and it can in theory tell your voices apart.

• 52:51Speaker 02

  Right. Hey Siri, send an iMessage to mom. Hi, mom.

• 52:56Nilay Patel?

  Literally did nothing. It's sitting right here.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  That's for the podcast listeners. It wasn't for you.

• 53:01Nilay Patel?

  Hey Siri.

• 53:04Nilay Patel?

  Text Dieter, that was not very nice.

• 53:08Speaker 01

  Well, it didn't set off mine, so.

• 53:10Nilay Patel?

  If, if any, if any listeners have a friend named Dieter, apologize to them. Um, the best part about this is I definitely tried to iMessage you and you have an S8 right now. Well, I got the text. No, I didn't. Yes, I did. There it is. Oh, really?

• 53:24Speaker 01

  I would have.

• 53:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I got it. Siri, I guess Siri thinks it's a blue, you're a blue bubble. Siri is wrong. I'm not a blue bubble. Anyways, but it, so it worked, right?

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it didn't set it.

• 53:33Nilay Patel?

  It didn't set off mine, so. Um, so they could do it.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  So if that works well enough, but you'd still have to train it for your individual voices of everyone in your house, or just train it for yours and then no one else will be able to use it in your house, but maybe Apple's cracked it. Maybe Apple has like a really good, solid solution.

• 53:50Speaker 03

  Well, and that's the other big thing Alexa is lacking is the multiple users, right? So that's what everyone's complaining about.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  I mean, they do technically have multi-user support in the sense that if you have an Amazon account on there, you can add other accounts to it also. So you can get other calendars and emails and stuff, but it's all or nothing, right? If I have an Alexa set up in my house and my roommate wants to add his calendar to it, both of our calendars are accessible to everyone from every Echo in the house.

• 54:17Nilay Patel?

  That's what you want. Yeah. The trade-offs here with these devices are just terrifying. It's like, people can just see you whenever they want. Any rando can send a text message. Here's my calendar. Whatever you want, as long as it's a little bit more convenient than before. That problem, I think, is probably, is well solved with the screen on the show, right? Because you can just say, I am this user.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:39Nilay Patel?

  Um, I wonder if Apple's gonna do a screen, open. Well, Schiller said a thing that he thinks screens matter.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  I mean, Apple doesn't even have multi-user support on iPads.

• 54:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so Apple. Well, only if you're in education.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Oh, education has it. You want it on a speaker, though?

• 54:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 54:54Speaker 01

  Like, that's.

• 54:55Nilay Patel?

  I mean, Apple historically not great. Apple doesn't have great multi-user on the Apple TV, the single most shared device they make. Um, so I hope they get better at it. I mean, that, it's something that if they figure out how to unlock, it gets better and better and better. And they're in a unique position to do it across their ecosystem, which I think is smart. All right. Anything else? Do you have a gadget corner, gadget world?

• 55:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Every week.

• 55:16Nilay Patel?

  Every week.

• 55:16Speaker 01

  Ashley is here.

• 55:17Nilay Patel?

  Ashley tells a secret.

• 55:18Speaker 03

  I'm always here. Um, wow.

• 55:21Nilay Patel?

  What the fuck is?

• 55:25Speaker 03

  It's the cutest thing ever. Gadget.

• 55:29Nilay Patel?

  Gadget.

• 55:30Speaker 03

  Gadget Echo.

• 55:32Nilay Patel?

  Echoes of gadgets.

• 55:33Speaker 03

  Echo gadget.

• 55:34Nilay Patel?

  Echoes of gadgets with Ashley Carmen.

• 55:36Speaker 03

  Um, okay, this just really is a gadget for me because I grew up without cable. And so PBS is putting out an HDMI streaming stick.

• 55:47Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 55:47Speaker 03

  That runs, it has all of this preloaded PBS content. So you can take it with you on vacation or wherever.

• 55:54Nilay Patel?

  Also, it's got like storage and a bunch of like kid shows on it.

• 55:57Speaker 03

  And it has kid content and it also comes with a little kid friendly remote. But the best part about it is that it's green and it's a race car.

• 56:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:05Speaker 03

  Aww. It's just really cute.

• 56:07Nilay Patel?

  It looks insane.

• 56:07Speaker 03

  It's so cute.

• 56:09Nilay Patel?

  You plug a race car into your TV and it plays good stuff at you.

• 56:11Speaker 03

  Yes. Yes, exactly.

• 56:13Nilay Patel?

  This doesn't look real, like. It's, it's like, it's like my first sesame, my first Sony, but it's a streaming stick.

• 56:20Speaker 03

  My first streaming stick.

• 56:21Nilay Patel?

  Who makes this? This is incredible.

• 56:22Speaker 03

  It's PBS. But they're selling it right now only through Walmart, but then it's eventually going to be

• 56:27Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 56:27Speaker 03

  released more widely. But it can connect over wifi and I didn't get the full details on this one, but when it's on wifi, they, PBS apparently partnered with all the stations around the country.

• 56:38Nilay Patel?

  Uh huh.

• 56:38Speaker 03

  So that it can bring you a live channel.

• 56:42Nilay Patel?

  Oh, okay.

• 56:42Speaker 03

  So if you want to connect it to wifi, you can.

• 56:45Nilay Patel?

  Huh.

• 56:46Speaker 03

  It's great. I mean, I've been covering a lot of kid tech lately, like Amazon Fire, kid dashboards.

• 56:52Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 56:53Speaker 03

  Things like that. And this is a good idea, in my opinion.

• 56:56Nilay Patel?

  And it's a race car.

• 56:57Speaker 03

  And it's a race car.

• 56:58Nilay Patel?

  And it's green.

• 56:59Speaker 03

  And it's green.

• 57:00Nilay Patel?

  I think weird specialized tech that is becoming really good because the commodity tech got good is like fascinating. Like if you can take the guts of a Roku stick, which costs thirty dollars and make a specialized version of that, and it's as good as a Roku stick, because it's the same stuff, that gets like, to me, really interesting really fast. Although here, the idea appears to be make it look like a race car. So.

• 57:24Speaker 03

  You talk about that like it's a bad thing.

• 57:28Nilay Patel?

  A kid running around with a race car, just running towards every TV they see.

• 57:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, I think there's some dangers there.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  I'd rather have this like sitting on my, my TV stand than, I don't know, uh, just a black box.

• 57:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, at least it has some personality.

• 57:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what you want.

• 57:47Speaker 01

  Also, do the wheels move? Cause if the wheels move and you can actually drive this around as a race car on your desk?

• 57:52Speaker 02

  Oh, it has to.

• 57:53Speaker 01

  Like it, it very much looks like you could use this as a toy.

• 57:56Speaker 03

  To be sent to me.

• 57:57Speaker 02

  Does the spec bullet list include just the, the words vroom, vroom? Does it, does it have the vroom, vroom?

• 58:03Speaker 03

  Oh, PBS doesn't do spec sheets.

• 58:07Nilay Patel?

  I'm looking for, can you drive this up to a specialized dock at the base of your TV? And have the HDMI connector slot in and then, cause then it teaches you hand eye coordination and then you get rewarded with the kids.

• 58:17Speaker 03

  Well, there are games on this too, just, just so you know.

• 58:20Nilay Patel?

  All right. Well, we're all getting one.

• 58:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:23Nilay Patel?

  Everyone's happy. And then we can spy on each other with our echo devices, tiles and text message each other for days. Is that the show?

• 58:31Speaker 02

  That's the show. Plenty, but that's enough.

• 58:34Nilay Patel?

  It's been a week. There's a lot going on in the world this week, but I think that's the big stuff. I'm really excited for more of this Microsoft stuff to come out.

• 58:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:40Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and to poke at it. I think Google I O is next week.

• 58:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's gonna be wild.

• 58:45Nilay Patel?

  There's gonna be a lot of stuff out of that one. Dieter will be there.

• 58:48Speaker 02

  Yep. And along with a ton of people.

• 58:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I think we're sending a small army to Google I O. So it's that season. Uh, and then W W C is coming up.

• 58:55Speaker 02

  Immediately after.

• 58:57Nilay Patel?

  Immediately after.

• 58:57Speaker 02

  Almost.

• 58:58Nilay Patel?

  And then in between is the code conference. So just news, news on news on news is happening. Um, but I will say Microsoft, if you think about the three big developer conferences, Microsoft one first, Google's one second, then Apple comes a little bit later. Microsoft has set a bar.

• 59:12Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 59:12Nilay Patel?

  I, I, to be just openly positive about it, like they put out a lot of stuff today, like wild ideas, some which like, as I said, were throwbacks. But their, their level of like pride of execution is higher than I've seen it in forever, quite honestly. Um, but.

• 59:31Speaker 02

  It's because they don't have to make any phone stuff.

• 59:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. They're just like, you know what? We didn't do a good job.

• 59:37Speaker 02

  No, but there's something to say there, like Amazon, same boat, right? Like, they made a phone, it bombed, and that everybody assumes and feels-

• 59:43Nilay Patel?

  You might say it was on fire.

• 59:44Speaker 02

  That they, yeah, it freed up their minds to try some next thing.

• 59:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 59:48Speaker 02

  And Microsoft tried phones, they bombed, and now they're, they doubled their focus on Windows, and like, I think they're doing really interesting stuff on Windows.

• 59:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Everyone's trying to get an app on the home screen.

• 59:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:59Nilay Patel?

  All right, there are other shows to listen to. Walt and I actually talked a bunch about the Echo Show on Ctrl+Delete. He went deep on that, so listen to that if you're interested. Lauren Good hosts Too Embarrassed to Ask, which is wonderful. Kara Swisher hosts Recode Decode, and Peter Kafka hosts Recode Media, which is deep and wonderful for media nerds. There's also the Verge Extras feed out in the world, it's full of experiments. I will tell the podcast listeners, we are gonna start doing some crazy podcast experiments on a platform yet to be named.

• 1:00:28Speaker 02

  Bum bum bum.

• 1:00:29Nilay Patel?

  I'm really excited for that. I really wanna start getting into some culture stuff as a podcast, and I really want Casey Newton to wander the streets of San Francisco with a microphone, like an old-school radio reporter, asking millennials, "What the fuck is up?"

• 1:00:44Speaker 02

  He's gonna get assaulted.

• 1:00:47Nilay Patel?

  And I will tell you, everyone's favorite platform, Facebook, now has a new excellent page, which you should like. It is Verge Science on Facebook, there's a bunch of videos on there, our science coverage is on there.

• 1:01:00Nilay Patel?

  Liz Lopato, our science editor, and her excellent team of reporters, I think some of the best science reporters in the entire game. We really looked at Facebook, our science content goes all over the place on Facebook, it's actually wild to look at the numbers, and there's so much bad stuff on Facebook, I think we can like, we can put up the good fight here and give people good stuff on Facebook and science. So go, Verge Science on Facebook, like it, share it. I will tell you, there's a video coming to that page. Soon, and I mean this in all sincerity, that video starts with the words, "The plants are fucking." And it's gonna be great. Yeah. Verge Science, go to it, have that experience. It's gonna be wild. We'll be back next week, post-Google I/O, I think. I should be able to handle that, I think.

• 1:01:45Nilay Patel?

  So we'll have all of Google stuff happening next week. It's that season. We'll figure it out. Well, we can, we pre-record the show. We can just do it whenever we want. Fair. Yeah, so we'll figure that out. And then more stuff will happen, endlessly, here in this actual reality. That's Vergecast. Rock and roll. Paul. Snip, snip.