Tesla Model 3 first drive, iPhone leaks, and a bluetooth salt shaker

We are without Nilay Patel on The Vergecast this week, so Dieter Bohn and Paul Miller step up to host with some very special guests: transportation editor Tamara Warren, and tech editor Natt Garun. Tamara was one of the few people who got to test drive the Tesla Model 3 last week, so she brings her expertise to the show to talk about what she knows so far. Also, some of the iPhone’s design and features got leaked out from code in the HomePod, so Natt Garun helps the crew break down all the information we’ve gleaned. There’s a whole lot in between that — like Paul’s segment about the salt shaker Smalt — so listen to it all and you’ll get it all. 01:18 - Tesla Model 3 first drive 31:02 - The next iPhone’s screen design and face unlock apparently confirmed by HomePod firmware 39:52 - This iPhone 8 concept video imagines a touchscreen in the home button 48:33 - Next Level final episode with Lauren Goode 1:10:56 - Paul’s weekly segment “Smalt you later” 1:14:25 - Apple returns to growth as cheaper iPads boost sales 1:15:32 - Fitbit says its long-awaited smartwatch will be ready for the holidays 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.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of The Verge, a multimedia sensory experience that you can visit on the web or elsewhere. I am not Neelai Patel, lucky for you, but I am joined by other people who are amazing. Nat Garen is here on the podcast.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  That's me.

• 0:30Speaker 00

  We also have Paul Miller, of course. Hello. And for the first time on The Vergecast, which blows my mind, Tamara Warren, the Transportation Editor of Theverge.com.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  Hi.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  Hello.

• 0:42Speaker 02

  Hi, I'm in the building.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, every time we have a meeting, we always try and do video conferencing, and Tamara is always dialing in, literally, from a car.

• 0:53Speaker 02

  No, you've got to keep it moving.

• 0:57Speaker 00

  So Neelai's on vacation, it's deserved, he claims, fine, whatever. I guess he's allowed to have a vacation. But there is, this week, a ton of news. We've been having a lot of just like hang-in Vergecasts, and this one will also be a chill hang, but it's a chill hang with a boatload of news. And I think, without a doubt, the most important news of the week was the unveiling, or the release, the, I don't know, what do we call this thing? The launch, the event for the Tesla Model 3. And Tamara, you were there.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  I was.

• 1:31Speaker 00

  They called it a launch, right?

• 1:32Speaker 02

  Not really. It's not the official launch.

• 1:35Speaker 00

  What was it?

• 1:37Speaker 02

  It's more of a-

• 1:38Speaker 00

  Well, Elon just has SpaceX, so he can't call it a launch, because that has a technical meaning for him, right?

• 1:41Speaker 02

  Exactly, exactly. And they were very specific that it wasn't precisely a launch. But more of an event celebrating a handoff, as you will, for the first Model 3 customers.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  Which were?

• 1:55Speaker 02

  Company employees.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  So yeah, Tesla's on sizzle right now.

• 2:01Speaker 03

  So like a party about a cool employee bonus.

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, essentially.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  Hooray.

• 2:08Speaker 03

  But you got the ride in it.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  I did. I drove it.

• 2:11Speaker 03

  Oh, that's right.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I drove the Model 3.

• 2:13Speaker 03

  How fast did you go?

• 2:15Speaker 02

  As fast as I could. I mean, you don't see a speedometer in front of you, so you really don't know how fast you're going.

• 2:22Speaker 03

  That was my number one question. Please explain.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  And also, I mean, in your peripheral vision, you can see the screen on the right.

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Like on the bottom right hand corner of where you.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  Well, more like if you're steering straight, you can see it without turning your head.

• 2:38Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  I highly recommend driving cars looking at the road and not at a screen. So, and funny as that sounds, I often notice some people don't look at the road when they're driving. They'll actually look at you or the screen or something else. But in this case, you literally should look at the road and not the screen on your right.

• 2:59Speaker 03

  And so you just don't know how fast you're going?

• 3:01Speaker 02

  Well, I think if had I spent more time in the car and acclimated more to the screen, I probably could have toggled with the settings a bit more to be able to see my speed. The speed, but I was more just concentrating on like feedback from the road and what it felt like. But it had, so my sense, from my sensory perception only, which is just feels, it felt really good. And you have really good power going into full acceleration. And that way it's like, was actually quite impressive.

• 3:33Speaker 03

  I don't know a lot about cars, so Dieter will have to ask you more car questions, but it felt good to drive.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  It felt very good to drive.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Good. Okay.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:40Speaker 03

  That's good to know.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  But like, how good? I mean, I don't, I'm not great at cars either, but the, you know, I read your piece about the experience of driving it. But the thing that I want to know is people see that this thing costs 35 grand to start and of course it goes up and we'll get into that.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  But did it feel like a, like a luxury car? Did it feel like just a car car? Did it feel like a Civic? Did it feel like a BMW? Did it feel like another Tesla? Like what, what was the, the actual vibe you got getting in the car?

• 4:12Speaker 02

  Um, I'd say what they call like entry level luxury. So, which is kind of where it needs to be. I mean, when you look at the car I drove, it wasn't a $35,000 car. I had like the fully loaded, optioned up. Nice, natural-looking wood, veneer. Everything you could possibly want to add to your Model 3 car. And in that way, that's what it felt like, like maybe an entry-level C-Class or something of like a Mercedes C-Class. So I think that that's what it achieves. It achieves a base-level luxury standard. Is this a Civic? Is this the Everyman Accord? No. But I don't know if that's what it needs to be. It's the shake-up car, and that's what I think the function of.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  After thinking about it more and more, I think that's the function of what the Model 3 is.

• 5:01Speaker 03

  A shake-up car?

• 5:02Speaker 02

  It's the car that will continue to push the industry in weird ways, which is what is the function of Tesla. Like, will they be able to make 500,000 cars? I don't know. I mean, if I were a betting woman, I might not like, you know, put the house on the line or anything like that, because there are a lot of questions about understanding supply chain and just it takes a long time to get it right, right? Like, any of us. You know, when you try something for the first time, it's probably not going to work. And so Tesla sets itself up with its own sort of standards on how fast they need to be able to get something done, and they're not achievable goals. So they kind of set themselves up for failure, which is an interesting business plan, I

• 5:47Speaker 02

  think. But as far as the product goes, will the 499,000 Tesla Model 3 have the same quality as the fifth Model 3 built? I don't know. I mean, and what happens if you're driving your Tesla Model 3 and you have the 50th Model 3, but something breaks and you need a part? Will they be able to pull something off the line from the 400,000? All those questions are like way in the future, and that's why I think we're still a long way from seeing Model 3s take over the roads.

• 6:21Speaker 03

  So you're saying they're building these, but they're building these in kind of a bespoke, slow fashion? And by the time they build the 500,000th one, they'll have a true mass manufacturing?

• 6:32Speaker 02

  Well, to get to 500,000 would require that to be in place.

• 6:37Speaker 03

  And that's a different car.

• 6:39Speaker 02

  It's a different car, and it's complicated, and, you know, space is an issue in their factories, and what happens when you start accelerating process? I mean, look at what happened to the car companies in the 80s, like... The more you build, the harder it gets, you know.

• 6:56Speaker 03

  Wait, what happened to the?

• 6:57Speaker 02

  I mean, you think about quality in American car companies, right? Like, there's a reason that, and I hope I don't offend anybody, but where I grew up, people were like, oh, Ford, fixer, repair and delivery. Like, that's what it stands for, right? So, you know, those things like that, when you, like, think back, and that's no longer the case. Actually, Ford has really good quality. They learned their lesson. But I think that what's essentially happened to the car industry is that when you build more and more, it's like everything. And the same with a restaurant. Like, how does a restaurant maintain its quality? You know, as soon as there's more and more franchises, it goes down. So, that's the logic of manufacturing. And an economist could probably explain it in a more profound way than me, but that's

• 7:40Speaker 02

  my big question with Tesla is the manufacturing goals just seem ambitious, to say the least. But as far as a product goes, to answer your question about why is this car a bit of a game changer, is it does weird things that people haven't seen in this space? And by going on this really very minimal route, I think that it is poised to influence a lot of other carmakers, or at least scare them enough to consider that they've got to watch. And that's what I think the function of Tesla has been. We would not be seeing this race toward autopilot. We would not be seeing the cool factor of electrification. There are so many things that they are directly responsible for, and this car continues down that path as a product.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  I don't know if it does as a reality. That is yet to be seen.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  Could any other company get this cool, like, have a huge party where thousands of people are hanging out just to see the company give 30 cars to employees?

• 8:39Speaker 02

  I don't think so. I mean, I think it's like, it's like the music industry, it used to be that way, and now it's no longer. So, you know, this is that culmination of cool factor tech. It's everything. It's going to mar, it's the vision, right? Like, it's branding that is just a part of our time. And so, to not, I mean, that's what they have going for them, and they should use that, because what company wouldn't want that cachet? That's what they have.

• 9:07Speaker 03

  They can't mass manufacture this car. But they have sold this dream very effectively.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  Mm hmm. I think so. I mean,

• 9:13Speaker 00

  But that's the crazy thing about this launch, right? The the whole point of the three is that they can mass, you know, mass producers, or they claim they can. They've simplified the process for building it compared to previous Teslas. It's got, you know, how many thousand fewer parts? I forget. But if you're saying that you don't actually buy that yet, can the thing be as disruptive as we hope it is? Because isn't the power of the disruption from the Model 3, the fact that they're going to sell hundreds of thousands of them?

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Well,

• 9:41Speaker 00

  Isn't that the point?

• 9:42Speaker 02

  I think so, but I also think if you look at the history of Tesla, like delivering on time, on goals, has never really been part of the ethos of what the brand is, right? So, but having talked with people in the auto industry, I mean, you're going to hear a lot of pushback on the why and the how, but people are watching and listening, and that's because they seem to, by sheer will, be willing to figure it out. It just might take longer than what they're saying, but I think they're on the path there. And it's incredibly complex. There were 5,000 car companies that went out of business in the 20th century because people could not hang when it came to mass producing cars. And, you know, Model S made everyone stop and listen,

• 10:27Speaker 02

  and now they're watching to see what happens with Model 3. We just, I don't know. I mean, I think they will make some, and I think if you have car number 200, you're probably in a good spot. If you've, if you're signing up today, you know, you might want a five-year plan in place. I don't know. Literally, I mean, I just think it's a lot of work to build that many cars. And then the myriad of issues that come up when you have scale with quality. Because think about it, like, if your car doesn't, I mean, if you buy this and it's your only car and it doesn't work, you're going to be really mad if there's no loaner car at the dealer for you or if you can't get to work. Whereas if you have four cars and this is like your fun whimsy car, then it's okay, right? So, I don't know.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Is it the car that you can depend on? We, I mean, they have to prove that, and I think they should have to prove that to their customers.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  I was interested in this, like, the wide range of customization and that the default option doesn't even have, like, the seats don't move under, like, I guess these days when I get into a relatively modern car, it seems like everything's powered. But that would obviously add a lot of complexity. But it also seems to me from a manufacturing perspective, like if you wanted to be like more tech company, when you're making a car, you just make basically two models, like basically with a storage difference or colored, you know, like something really, it seems like it would be way easier to manufacture if you didn't have all these different options.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  But there's not that many options.

• 11:57Speaker 03

  There's not that many options.

• 11:58Speaker 02

  No, and it really is two different models, like a short range and a long range. I mean, you can have different colors, you can have slightly different packages, but there's nothing very, you know, when you look at like the features that are offered compared to the complexity of reading what's out there in other cars.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  So it is relatively similar compared to other, it just sounded complicated to me because like

• 12:17Speaker 02

  Well, I mean,

• 12:18Speaker 03

  There's different seat options.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  Well, what's complicated about it, if you look at the options that are available for cars in general, it's, I mean, you kind of need a degree just to understand what you're buying when you get a new car, because there's so many different options available, different engines, heated seats, cooled seats. Do you want the long wheelbase version, the short wheelbase? There's so many ways you can configure cars and we, for a long time, we thought customization was where everything was going, that you could really make the car like tricked out to your own tastes. But, you know, this is sort of a different approach. This is minimalization, stripping down the choices, stripping down the distraction. It's what I see this car as personally is this is the first step towards an autonomous car

• 13:02Speaker 02

  that people will want to ride in because there's not that much to look at.

• 13:06Speaker 03

  Well, that's the like the smartphone comparison, it doesn't almost matter what the object looks like because everything that matters is what's on the screen.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  Well, and if you don't need to look at the road, this is a fine way to ride around because you don't need switches in your face. So maybe that's the long-term plan is that maybe they know they're not going to make this now as in scale like they need to. But as we hit 2021, when autonomy start going to start slowly rolling out, they're going to be there already.

• 13:35Speaker 03

  That's a long time.

• 13:36Speaker 00

  That's always been the, the big question to me, like in terms of the importance of the three. Like I think of it in terms of, you know, a relatively affordable electric car, but I, I sort of, for some reason, part of me doesn't actually believe that, that, you know, one, that can they hit their goal, their manufacturing goals, I don't know, but. I don't know how much I believe that they're actually going to be able to hit these autonomy goals. This car seems to like it's completely designed to be autonomous and that the fact that it isn't totally yet is just like a shrug. They'll get there in a minute. But I don't know. Did you get a chance? Did you get a chance to try any of the auto stuff? Or was all that stuff turned off when you drove it?

• 14:15Speaker 02

  Oh, no, I didn't get enough time at all. No. Yeah, I mean, literally, it was like a loop around the Fremont campus. So it was more about just driving it and, you know, and just acclimating to the fact that there are no gauges, which, you know, throws you off for a minute when you get into a car and you see nothing except like a smooth sheet of wood and no vents or anything. But all of it was housed in the screen, in the single 15 inch screen to my right. And I would have liked, I mean, and I saw, I saw a bit of what the app will look like that people will use. So, and also, the autonomous features are not there yet. Right? They're, they'll be coming. But I mean, again, not there yet,

• 14:57Speaker 02

  not there yet. But they had a car. I mean, so that part was, that part was actually the most surprising to me. I'm like, wow, this is a car and it's here and it looks good and it drives well. So that's sort of what I took away from it. As far as all of the other questions, who knows? But I think that even shocked all of us that were there, you know, in the sort of like Willy Wonka moment where you, the curtain is peeled back and you're in this room and you're like, wow, this is, everyone wants to know what's in this car and I'm getting to see it. How cool is that? Lucky me, journalist.

• 15:28Speaker 00

  Okay, so when are we going to get out of the wait and see mode with Tesla? When are we going to be able to just say, okay, they did it? Or nope, they're not doing it?

• 15:36Speaker 02

  Hmm, never. No, I, I

• 15:39Speaker 00

  Never, right?

• 15:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:40Speaker 00

  It's like crazy making.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  Even if they shipped this at scale, by the time they were doing that, they would have some insane promise, like, we'll have you in a flying car in three years.

• 15:49Speaker 02

  I do think so. And I think that's, you know, part of, you know, Musk's personality and how he drives the brand forward is putting new challenges on his overworked engineering team. But they all seem incredibly excited about still. I mean, no one seemed, people, their mood at Tesla was very excited. They were, they did not exude a weariness, I would have to say, dealing just with, they were excited to show the work they'd been doing and the car that they'd made and hope to make.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  There was a story about them scaling back a little bit on the Model Y.

• 16:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:23Speaker 03

  Like that instead of making an all-new platform for the Model Y, they're going to use the Model 3's platform?

• 16:29Speaker 02

  I mean, that's just logical.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  It sounds really logical, but again.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that's part of, I mean, and these are supply questions. And even with Model, I mean, they, they have said repeatedly that Model X was not a well-planned car from a production perspective, because why would you change the platform? If you look at other companies, as we move into the space, especially where there's like a zillion crossovers, they are using same platforms, because from a manufacturing perspective, it's much easier to build off platform. So, you know, those, those are the thing, and I think also too, through experience, a lot of this will be learned, because you can say you're going to do something again, but till you do it, you really don't know what the challenges are. And even if you have people of experience before, they've never, all these moving parts need to work together.

• 17:15Speaker 03

  Is Tesla a company that learns from mistakes, at least?

• 17:20Speaker 02

  I think so. I think in some ways, maybe in some departments, yes, and in some departments, no. That's my political answer. No, I think that, you know, when you look at the fact that they've been able to put products on the road, they have to learn from their mistakes. That's making cars, right? Any, any functional design object actually function properly. So I think Model S was a learning experience for them, that they proved that they did learn. And Model X, I think retreating from Model X a bit and going in this direction, you do see that they've simplified their process. There's less parts to add, less, I mean, even someone recently told me that even screen, this, using screens can be cheaper than putting

• 18:03Speaker 02

  buttons and knobs in a car. One less thing you have to, one less thing you have to attach.

• 18:07Speaker 03

  Especially this just looks like, like a 15-inch laptop screen or something.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's basically what it is.

• 18:13Speaker 03

  Nothing weird or super custom.

• 18:15Speaker 02

  And no buttons or knobs, except for the two on the side of the steering wheels.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  But it's a capacitive screen, right? So if I'm driving in Minnesota, I'm wearing gloves, I'm out of luck. Right?

• 18:25Speaker 02

  I mean, I, it was hot in California and sometimes I'll be, that's often, it sounds silly, but that's often a lot of problems that have, car companies have that are based in California is that they don't get to do that testing. And I mean, we haven't seen, we don't know, are they testing and really inclement conditions, how things work in this car? I'd hope so, but you don't know because, I mean, that's sometimes what ends up happening.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  Do they have voice controls?

• 18:49Speaker 02

  Um, I didn't use voice, voice controls. I'm assuming they're automated to use voice controls. But again, limited experience.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  And wait, and the two buttons, are those paddle shifters or are those actual like?

• 19:03Speaker 02

  No.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  Volume button type things?

• 19:05Speaker 02

  No, they're scrolling knobs on the side of the wheel. So it almost feels like a mouse, like two mice.

• 19:11Speaker 03

  So you have two like, like scroll wheels?

• 19:14Speaker 00

  Scroll wheels.

• 19:14Speaker 03

  On the steering wheel?

• 19:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. But they're, but they're circular and the, the mouse feeling as opposed to what you typically find in a car. Yeah.

• 19:24Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. And they're like little, they're black and they're on the side of the, I mean.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  So you could, you could theoretically do everything with them instead of using the touchscreen?

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Most things I would imagine. Some things you're still.

• 19:35Speaker 03

  Tedious maybe?

• 19:36Speaker 02

  Um, yeah. And also a little bit of hand eye coordination issues there because the screen is over to your right. And I mean, the screen is beautiful. I mean, they, it's, it's better. It's, it's not like last year's iPad. Like it's, there's a lot going on there and like the depth of field is really good and just of the different views that you could have of your car and to see what's going on, but it has to be because everything is there. So, you know, but that also sort of. It shores up like the idea of like their updates and how that will probably even be more fluid on this car, I imagine, because it's just one thing they have to worry about. So that, I mean, it's interesting. That's, that part is really interesting to me about the car.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  What I'd be curious about, too, is as Tesla cars become way more software-dependent, especially as autonomous driving become a thing, like, I'm curious what their version of a Genius Bar will look like, because inevitably, there's going to be people who are coming to them with like, software issues, or like, update problems, or cracked screens, or, you know, just issues, and then like, you know, and, and like, most, where we used to gadgets being on a one-year kind of like, cycle, where every year, there's a new gadget, and cars, too, like, every year, there's a new model car, but like, with Tesla, I'd be super curious to see what like, a new year model would look like, or like, what a software update looks like for Tesla, and what their customer support is going to be like, because

• 20:58Speaker 01

  when you're spending that kind of money, you want the customer support that you expect from a like, luxury, well, I think it's debatable whether we call it a luxury car, but, yeah, to be super curious what their software, um, customer service is going to look like, just because there inevitably, there's going to be people who are going to be confused by how all of this works, especially the whole wheel thing you just described, I feel like it's going to take a lot of people getting used to.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think, well, one thing they've said is that they plan on making it where people will actually come to your house to service your car for you. So maybe that's the concierge, like, somebody who's right there, showing you things and helping you things. I'm not really entirely clear, though, when that, how that works with parts, like, what happens when parts go wrong in the car, like, physical parts in the hardware, other than just screen issues. So that part, I think, is interesting. I mean, they say they're going to have more, but, you know, it's kind of intangible right now, and a little abstract to me. I don't really see the process yet, but...

• 21:58Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, most complex electronics, they basically, you just have to send them back to the factory to get them repaired. Unless it's literally the battery, or I guess with the iPhone, you can replace the screen.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  Right, but what happens when your brakes go bad, or what happens, like, those things, those are, like...

• 22:16Speaker 03

  You want to be able to go to a typical auto mechanic? The brakes are weird on this compared to a regular car?

• 22:22Speaker 02

  Most new cars are no longer serviced at auto mechanics. I mean, it's really a dealer's game now for new cars, because so much... Is tied into the car computer?

• 22:32Speaker 00

  This is why I avoid cars. Stay away. Bike for life. My practical problem, I was saying earlier, like we pre-ordered one, but I'm pretty sure we're gonna have to cancel it or, you know, give it away or whatever we're gonna do because we live in an apartment in a city and we have parking, but we definitely don't have superchargers. And I have literally no idea how I would actually practically keep this thing on the road and full of electricity because I don't, I don't know where I'd plug it in. I'd have to like find one nearby and like go and park it and hang out and charge it every couple of days or however, however often I need it and then go park it in my garage. It's like, I, I, I know they're gonna double the number of superchargers or so

• 23:12Speaker 00

  he said, but I, I don't know, man. It's, it's, it worries me that there, that, that infrastructure isn't quite as built out as it needs to be. And I don't know when the, you know, when the chicken and egg problem of that is gonna get solved. Not to mention that Tesla's superchargers is, aren't, my understanding is a Tesla's supercharger is different than like what other electric cars are using in some cases too, right? So it's like, how, you know, I can go to a gas station, but this, this thing is a problem for me because I don't live in, in a house in the suburbs.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Well, they say there's going to be more superchargers built, like considerably more superchargers built in the next year. But again, we need to see it all. It's like promises are great, but until you actually see it, a car is the second biggest purchase you make, right? So

• 23:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  You're putting a lot on the line for a promise where if you can afford that and to take a chance on that, then, and it works out, great. But, you know, I think that's the edge that Tesla has over other car companies because who would even think about doing that? That's a crazy proposition. But, you know, if you're, if you get to drive around in a Model 3, imagine how sweet you'll be. Like everyone is just going to think you're amazing on the streets and you're not driving a Ferrari. So, you know, it's cooler than the Model S because it's brand new and no one's seen it and everyone wants to look inside of it. And so that's what you're buying. But as far as like a practical approach at this point, no, that's the argument with electric cars across the board for city life. Same, I mean, I have the same problem. I live in Brooklyn and where do I, you know,

• 24:43Speaker 02

  and until they have, um, you know, the charging, the portable car automated charging station that rolls up to my house and charges the car. As I'm changing alternate side parking, you know, then then that's a new game. But, you know, it's still logistically a bit of a challenge for city life, I think, unless you have a garage that has a dedicated charger and you're able. And a lot of these garages have one or two chargers, but there's 200 cars there. So the more electric cars, it's going to be more of an issue. You know, as supercharger networks expand, this might be different. But again, these are all infrastructure issues, which infrastructure is, you know, a tricky thing because there's great ideas, but actualization of these ideas are always

• 25:27Speaker 02

  sometimes not as is not as fluid as we would like, as we have seen.

• 25:31Speaker 03

  It seems to me like automation would really solve the problem for or an automation. What's it called? What's it called when a car drives itself?

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Self-driving autonomous cars.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  Autonomy. There you go. Thank you. Because because like I know I lived in Park Slope at one point and I don't know what neighbor you're in, but that the parking situation is so bad. If you could, if you could have drive your car because you love driving, drive to your front door, get out of your car and then tell your car, okay, go park in the parking garage that's 15 minutes away from here. And then tomorrow, when I need you, I'll call you 15 minutes before I need you to be in front of my house. And then then the car can go store itself where all the resources are there to charge it and and also decongest your neighbor. I don't know.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Well, if you go down the autonomous. Oh, go ahead.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  You could just get an Uber. What's the point of even having a car?

• 26:33Speaker 02

  Well, the autonomous theorists, if you go down the school of autonomy, I mean, the idea is the car theoretically will never park itself and it will.

• 26:42Speaker 03

  Because it could be used.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  It could be used by somebody else. Yeah. And it and that's where that's why ride sharing and car sharing industries are so tight close and electrification are tied to autonomy because. You know, all the rules have changed. So it opens up this whole new scope of possibilities. And that's why people are so excited about it. And, you know, and I love driving, but no one loves sitting in traffic. So I think it's very clear. We have a major problem. And, you know, and that's what I do appreciate about Tesla is that at least there's someone who's shaking things up in the way that we have to start solving some of these problems because they're not going to solve themselves. And as long as people are buying big trucks and, and kind of not really thinking about

• 27:25Speaker 02

  their commutes to work as being problematic, which they are, I mean, we have, there has to be some players that are just problematic to the rest of the industry. Now, are they the true competitor to be the number one car company? I don't know if that's really so much the question. And I think that's what people are hyper focused on. I don't think that's their role personally.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  Even maybe the number one electric car company.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  Or, or just tech company or whatever, however, I mean, I think competition drives interest, but I don't know if that's always so important. I mean, I think that maybe fuels what their game plan is, but for the rest of us, that's maybe not what their function is, right? Does the cool, like the coolest people are obvious, like not the most plentiful, like they're, they're the trend setters, right? So it's a trend setting company. That's, it's a trendy trend setting company. There's not as many, I mean, cool people aren't usually the ones that we know the most of. Cool people set the trends and they're an idea and then they're gone and they leave the room and the rest of us have to like figure out how to live.

• 28:22Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  So that's Tesla.

• 28:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, that, that's me, the one who has to live knowing he's not cool. All right, here's what's gonna happen. Um, I'm gonna read an ad. Uh, it's gonna be great. I'm not gonna screw it up at all. And then we have got just a boatload of iPhone rumors and we gotta, we gotta talk through all that stuff. So, uh, Tamara, thank you so much for telling us about your experience with Tesla and we'll be right back after this ad.

• 28:48Speaker 00

  So today's show is brought to you by Squarespace. Whatever your next big idea might be, you, it turns out, can count on Squarespace to help you create an eye-catching online platform that brings it to life. If you just need a portfolio to showcase your work, or you want to sell some stuff, or if you've got a blog and you want to share some ideas, Squarespace gives you everything you need to look like an expert right from the very start. You can even get a unique domain, you know, a website. It strengthens your brand and it makes it easier for visitors to find you. And with Squarespace's award-winning templates, creating a beautiful website is simple and intuitive. You can arrange the stuff on the page by moving your mouse around, which is hilarious,

• 29:29Speaker 00

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• 30:08Speaker 03

  I told you that I built a Squarespace just the other day, right? Did I tell you the story?

• 30:14Speaker 00

  No, what was your Squarespace you built?

• 30:16Speaker 03

  Well, this art gallery I hang out at, they had a messed up website, and they're like, "Can you fix that?" I was like, "I'm not going to mess with that WordPress, but I'll make you a new website." And then like, "Okay." So I just made it in Squarespace, and they literally, they like, "What do you want in exchange for this website?" And I said, "I want a chair." So they bought me a chair, and it's got 360-degree swivel, two cup holders, massage, heating, like folds out. I got this whole chair for making a Squarespace, which as Dieter described, is very, very easy and not worth chairs.

• 30:49Speaker 00

  Squarespace.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  Why not a piece of art?

• 30:51Speaker 00

  Get a chair.

• 30:53Speaker 03

  You know, that's interesting.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  I guess I value comfort over beauty.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  All right. iPhone.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:03Speaker 00

  Nat, we have got a million iPhone rumors and like, explain why we know as much as we know about the next fancy iPhone. Cause it is to me hilarious how this happened.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  So there's like a big firmware leak that happened that was just full of details. Everything from like what the screen is going to look like or like different firmware for like, whether or not it's going to have a home button and like different references to all the sensors that it's going to have, which is just insane. And it just fueled like 10 different spinoff posts about what this next iPhone is going to look like. First of all, it seems pretty much confirmed that the home screen button is like dead. It's basically gone. The rendering of the screen shows a giant screen with no particular button in sight on the bottom. And I will just say the obvious thing in that it looks like an Android phone.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Well, it functions much like an Android phone, but it looks like it. But let's just be real, that is exactly what it looks like. There's like a whole bunch of other display stuff, like it looks like there's a, going to be a third screen resolution. That's theoretically going to support AR or VR or whatever they're working on now.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  And there's supposed to be some sensors for facial unlock, which is going to do away with touch ID, which I think is also controversial. There's just a ton of stuff that it's a doozy.

• 32:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. And the firmware that leaked, to be clear, was the firmware for the HomePod, which is a whole other device. But it happened to have a complete build of iOS just hanging out in there. Cause the HomePod is basically an iOS device.

• 32:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, there was a really cool, a really cool theory about this, that the way Apple updates their software internally is they've got like a flag. Like when you're compiling something, you like type in like little flags for like the turn on and off features and they basically have a flag like,

• 32:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:00Speaker 03

  Do I hide all of the unreleased products that we have? And because it's a HomePod, it's an unreleased product. It was only going to internal HomePod testing. They didn't hide all those unreleased products. So all this information about the new iPhone is in it. But then they put it up on a server that was available for other people to download it. And so some intrepid. Apple or no iOS type developers have been digging into this and finding this crazy information like not listing.

• 33:33Speaker 00

  Okay, so yeah, so we should, we should go through some of this stuff feature by feature. And I mean, man, I don't even know where to start. I guess let's start with the screen. So it's a full front of the phone and then there's like a cut out for the, the sensors and the, the speaker. So it's kind of like the essential phone, but maybe not as Cyclops looking and no home button on the front.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:54Speaker 00

  So 3X resolution means it might be good. We were all assuming it'll be OLED. But if there's not a physical home button, like how's that gonna work? Like we don't think we're getting touch at the end of the screen. Are you gonna, are you gonna push down on the bottom just really hard and that'll be like what Samsung does? Are they gonna have a bar at the bottom like Android does with a virtual home button? Like what do you, what do you think they're gonna do?

• 34:17Speaker 03

  I've seen some.

• 34:19Speaker 00

  We've seen some like renders.

• 34:21Speaker 03

  I mean, I've been like hoping this is what they would do forever ago and I forget. I think it should just be a pressure sensitive home button, but it's, it's context sensitive. And sometimes maybe you're in a camera app and it's a shutter button and sometimes it's completely invisible when you are, um, you know, watching a movie. Like I think there's a lot they can do and I don't really think we know what it's gonna do. I think Siri already is like showing like right now Siri is this like weird little glowy thing at the bottom of your screen when you're talking to Siri and it looks like if you just scoot that little, little bit down, it's kind of the shape and size of a home button. Like

• 35:01Speaker 03

  I just think it will allow Apple specifically to add context to different situations that you're in, um, by using that lower portion of the screen. But I do not believe it will be super accessible to developers, but I could be completely wrong. But it's like a, it's kind of like a dock or it's kind of like, it's like, it's Apple's zone for doing cool new things at the bottom of the phone, but I really doubt it's going to be super available to developers.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  Like taking your DNA?

• 35:32Speaker 03

  Is this something that you were looking forward to?

• 35:36Speaker 02

  I mean, there's just so many ways, right? I mean, in the car world, for example, we often hear about retina and like all this new way of identifying yourself. And at what point does that trickle into?

• 35:48Speaker 03

  Well, they are, they are talking about face, face unlock. And also it should be recognizing your facial expressions, or at least those are other things that they've dug up in the software.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  That sounds gonna be super weird because I think as we've seen, it doesn't look like facial recognition in terms of identifying yourself has been super well received. I mean, it's cool and it's like, but so far it seems much more like a proof of concept than it is actually secure. Um, I think a lot of security experts have found many ways to spoof this essay, for example. And like, I just don't think it's practical. Like, when are you gonna walk down the street and try to buy something and then confirm your purchase by like waving a phone in your face and like blink at it? You know, that just sounds super awkward and it doesn't seem like something that people want or seems natural, but I could be wrong.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  I mean, like Apple has trained people to do things differently before, but I just, I'm not convinced that recognition as a security factor is it.

• 36:49Speaker 00

  So the, the two developers that have been way ahead in, in unpacking this stuff, it's Steve Tronton Smith and then Guillermo Rambo, who's at at underscore inside. And he's got a list of like facial expression codes in the code. And there's mouth close, mouth upper, up underscore L, mouth roll, upper, mouth smile, mouth dimple, mouth stretch, mouth frown, L and R, mouth press, I don't know what that means, mouth pucker. Yeah, here's mouth funnel.

• 37:20Speaker 03

  Mouth funnel. What's mouth funnel? Is mouth funnel different? It's like a pucker when you've like sealed and then a funnel is when you're leaving like?

• 37:31Speaker 00

  It's, it's when you really like are thirsty and you just, you've got a deep down body thirst and you're, you're looking for Gatorade.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  That's a pucker.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  No, but there's there's pucker and there's funnel.

• 37:42Speaker 03

  Right.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  And then there's mouth shrug lower and mouth shrug upper.

• 37:46Speaker 03

  That's me every day.

• 37:48Speaker 00

  How do you?

• 37:48Speaker 01

  Like, I don't know about you, but I don't think I have that many muscle-like talent in my mouth to both like control my pucker on the upper and lower lip at the same time.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  And how do braces or dentures like throw off the formula?

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Good question.

• 38:04Speaker 00

  I mean, I get I theoretically get the idea of what it means to shrug with your mouth. Just go like, hmm. But I don't understand upper and lower. Like, that's that's very strange. But if they have this, like, they're gonna recognize all these faces. Are they just doing it to make like Snapchat, like emoji face stuff, you know, face filter things? Or are they planning on using it for authentication? What if in order to make a purchase, you have to make a mouth pucker?

• 38:29Speaker 03

  No.

• 38:30Speaker 00

  You have to.

• 38:30Speaker 03

  No.

• 38:31Speaker 00

  You have to make the fish face in order to use Apple Pay at the store.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  That's kind of a great phone unlock. Is that like you have to make a certain face to unlock it? Because it's not just like looking at your static face. It's like you gotta make a specific face to unlock your phone. That way someone can't like take a picture of you and point the phone at like your Facebook photo and try to get into your phone.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  They they have been building a lot of stuff to basically give developers out of the box, like all of Snapchat's features. Like they've got like nose detection and eye detection and all that sort of stuff. So I I wouldn't be surprised if this is just Apple giving you.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  This is also a company that spent like 30 minutes talking about how their new iOS update will let you tap different words to quickly turn them into emoji. So I wouldn't be surprised that they'll spend an entire half hour to talk about like what your facial recognitions can now do in the camera app and like add random filters on top of it in the native camera app.

• 39:30Speaker 03

  Right?

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  So, by the way, I found this video. This was in February.

• 39:38Speaker 03

  Fatty Brandow.

• 39:43Speaker 03

  How do you think you say that? How do you say that?

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Teto Brando.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  Nice, close.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  I just made that up, I don't know.

• 39:52Speaker 03

  So, this is a concept video for an iPhone 8. And it shows, and this, this concept has like indentation for the, the home button, which, you know, maybe is gonna-

• 40:01Speaker 00

  A dimple.

• 40:01Speaker 03

  A dimple, which is maybe gonna go away. Uh, but it shows just like a lot of cool ideas for, like what you could do with this sort of virtual home button and like, you know, you know, scrubbing back and forth and you could put like toolbar, like icons, like, you know, like if you're in a photo editing app, you've got your different like, like crop and stuff. You can, I just, it makes so much sense. I really love this concept video. Please, please look for this. "February 2nd by Paul Miller. This iPhone 8 concept video imagines a touchscreen in the home button." Great, great piece that I wrote in February and I, I just love this concept video by Thaddeus.

• 40:39Speaker 00

  So, my favorite concept is, um, from Max Rudberg, who saw this new notch, you know, screen and put two and two together with iOS 11. So iOS 11 has these giant headers at the top of the screen, right? Um, but above that, there's the, the back button to like go up in the category. Then there's like an all categories button. And he's like, if you imagine what, uh, the new notched thing looks like, you actually don't want all that extra crap at the top of the screen. It's too hard to reach. You want it at the bottom. And if there's a virtual home button, then there's space on the left and right of it to put other buttons and they could, they could have those big headers at the top.

• 41:19Speaker 00

  And then they could also have at the bottom that the back button and the all categories button that are typically at the top down there on the left and right of the home button. And all of a sudden, it feels a lot more like Android.

• 41:31Speaker 03

  A lot less stretch into the top of the screen to get, get it stuff.

• 41:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:36Speaker 03

  All right, now-

• 41:37Speaker 00

  Also, I just want to point out, if they start making a gesture area at the bottom of the, the screen with like swipes and maybe they, you know, stick notifications on there. If they do any of that, I am gonna have so many WebOS feels that I'm gonna be the most insufferable person to be around.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  God.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  I'm gonna lose my mind.

• 41:53Speaker 03

  Okay, so here's the big question with the notch. If you got the notch there, right? There's room to the right and left of the notch, so you can put the battery indicator on the right, and you can put like the, your signal indicator on the left. Um, but where do you put the time? Do you put it below the notch? Do you squeeze it under one of the sides? Or what if, what if we just?

• 42:19Speaker 00

  If you want to tell the time, you gotta buy an Apple Watch.

• 42:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right.

• 42:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was gonna say Apple Watch. That's their solution.

• 42:26Speaker 00

  Uh, I guess that they just don't have the time up there, or maybe they make it, you know, they probably make it customizable, right?

• 42:34Speaker 03

  Hopefully.

• 42:35Speaker 00

  Don't show me my battery life, show me my time. You've got a choice of like, you know, four different things you can put up there and you've got to pick and choose.

• 42:40Speaker 03

  Maybe like some four dimensional flick gesture will show you the different things. Okay, but so here's my question. We, it seems like everybody's assuming that this, this bezel-less design without the home button and a notch is the iPhone 8 or iPhone Pro type thing. The one that's gonna cost more money and possibly be released after this iPhone 7S, which is, is the, the true regular next iPhone for regular people who want to spend a normal amount of money for their new iPhones. Do you think that is the case?

• 43:19Speaker 00

  I do. I think this thing is gonna cost, it's gonna start, I mean, there's been lots of speculation about the price and they gotta call it an iPhone Pro or whatever. Uh, I think this thing, I'm pretty well convinced that this thing is gonna be pretty expensive and I think it's gonna be pretty hard to get, uh, until next year. Cause I just, I just. I think that's how it's gonna go.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  I feel like it's not a rule for all time, but there's something really special about how the app, the iPhone has basically been this device that is, is a very expensive device, but if you have enough money to get an iPhone, you have basically the best technology that exists. And I guess it's been stratified a little bit because the Plus has an extra camera or something like that, but it's still kind of a taste issue because maybe you don't want the big phone. But to stratify it like that far where there's a, there's a phone that's $400 more, that's. It just feels weird to me.

• 44:10Speaker 00

  I mean, I would be more worried about it if I thought there was something in this iPhone that was like unbelievably better, but it'll like, it'll be a nicer phone and it'll feel cooler and I'll have a bigger screen and it'll be more, you know, speeds and feeds, the, the way that Android people love having, you know, crazy high-tech phones. Uh, but an iPhone SE and this brand new iPhone, uh, in terms of like apps and like basic utility are gonna be so close to each other that I kind of not that stressed out about it. I kind of, the idea that people are gonna like be up in arms and, and be all mad and have umbrage at Apple for daring to make a phone that is better than the one that they've got or that they

• 44:50Speaker 00

  could go get, you know, today. I don't know. It's like, let them do it. It's fine. Like they, it's, we are due for a little bit of shakeup in the phone market. People have been talking about how phones are boring for a couple of years now at least. And whatever, sure, they are, but this will help them not be, and I, that's actually really exciting to me.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  It's a, so essentially they're testing out whether people really will like it by making it in limited numbers and positing it as a luxury item and rewarding their limited edition, um, customers who are first in line, right? Is, is?

• 45:29Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah, the speculation is like, there's no way they could make this, you know, iPhone sells 70 million in a quarter. There's, there, people are assuming there's no way they can make, just produce that many of them. They've got the same problem Tesla does. Uh, and so they're, they're gonna, they're gonna price it higher, um, and treat it as a premium luxury product because it will be, but also because if it were priced lower, they wouldn't be able to make enough to meet demand.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Maybe they're doing the same thing with like the iPad strategy where they like for years had the iPad and all of a sudden they had the iPad Pro and then that leaves them room to sell a more expensive iPad that does basically the same thing, but it's got a little bigger screen and can do a little more thing. And then- That gives them room to make a slightly cheaper iPhone in the long run like they do now with the newest i- the regular iPad. And hopefully they'll sell more because then people will have this like, it's like the same thing when you go to movie theater, right? Like you either buy the small popcorn, you buy the large popcorn, no one buys the medium-sized popcorn. Eventually, they're gonna make a small-sized iPhone popcorn, and that's what people are gonna buy more of.

• 46:35Speaker 02

  Does this mean that Apple wants to be the luxury phone company? Is that what this is?

• 46:40Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. I mean, now that Vertu's gone. They're gonna fill the niche. I mean, that's exactly what I was saying. Apple has been the luxury phone brand. It's just that they have like a cap on the price. With the watch, they sort of uncapped the price and said, we can go crazy with this. But the iPhone, there's like, the most expensive iPhone is like a thousand-ish dollars because it has the maxed-out storage, and it's a plus. And then that's it. And then...

• 47:14Speaker 02

  But luxury to me isn't just the price, it's the fact that not everybody can have one.

• 47:18Speaker 03

  Right. And I feel like that could... I mean, Apple has, you know, since the iPod has basically had like this, like, here's our best device, everybody could have one at this price, and there's nothing very much cheaper. But, you know, Apple's big growth market right now is these more, like, making more iPhone SEs, like, making, like, phones in India to be bought in India, like, expanding its market in that direction. So maybe it sees there's a direction to expand to luxury, but I really just think it's a whole, it'd be, it's not wrong of them to do, and there's probably room to grow there. It's just, it would be a different feel for me of what I expect from Apple.

• 47:57Speaker 00

  So there are a million other Apple things that I want to talk about. There's earnings, there's this VPN issue in China where they capitulated and started pulling VPN apps from the store. There's a bunch of stuff, but what's actually going to happen is we're gonna throw a bunch of that stuff into the lightning round. Right now, what you're going to hear is the voice of Neelai Patel and also the voice of Lauren Good. They're talking about her final episode of Next Level, which is incredible, you should definitely watch it. And they're gonna go behind the scenes and talk about that a little bit. So let's listen to that, and then we'll listen to an ad, and then we'll be right back.

• 48:33Nilay Patel?

  Hi. I haven't been on the Vergecast this week because I'm on vacation, but I'm here now with Lauren Good. Hey, Lauren.

• 48:40Speaker 05

  Technology is just magical. You're on vacation, I'm working remotely, you're not even on the Vergecast, but now you are. We're making this happen.

• 48:47Nilay Patel?

  The magic of pre-recorded audio. Who knew? Steve Jobs was right.

• 48:51Speaker 05

  So high-tech.

• 48:53Nilay Patel?

  Who knows?

• 48:54Speaker 05

  I've got a Raspberry mic in front of me and my world has changed.

• 48:58Nilay Patel?

  So Lauren, congratulations. The first season of Next Level is done. You fought it through.

• 49:06Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 49:07Nilay Patel?

  You got four episodes. They're great. Congrats.

• 49:08Speaker 05

  Thank you. It's been really, really fun.

• 49:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I'm happy that we're making killer-quality videos in this moment on the internet and that we have a show that's about innovation in a moment when so much of the news is actually about bad things. I'm just proud that we published a show that's about people trying big, crazy ideas. Whether they work or not, they're trying and they're thinking, and I think that's a neat hook for a show.

• 49:32Speaker 05

  I agree. And you know what? While we're on the line, I mean, you are my boss. You're the editor-in-chief, so why don't we just do a quarterly review of the show here? Why don't you just tell me? Just give me a grade. Tell me what you thought.

• 49:44Nilay Patel?

  Oh, A. Obviously, an A. I mean, if you're gonna put me on the spot in front of an audience, you get an A. We'll talk later, Lauren.

• 49:51Speaker 05

  Thank you. Oh, boy. Thank you.

• 49:54Nilay Patel?

  No, the show was great. It was cool. You pointed out to me yesterday, the whole Verge team worked on it and thought about it, and we have a huge team, and for everyone to come together and make a thing is always the best. So that was very cool to see as well.

• 50:11Speaker 05

  I think that's the thing. I think every time someone has said, "Great job on the series," in my mind, and I'm not just saying this in my mind, I've thought to myself, "Oh, no, but Alex and Will did that graphic, and Rachel helped with the research on that one, and Veeran and Tyler shot it." And I'm not even thinking, "Oh, yeah, I should take the congra..." It was such a team effort. It really was. It took the whole Verge team to make this thing, but it was really fun.

• 50:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Super exciting. So, let's talk about this last episode, which... Kind of the one product that you looked at that is the closest to being a product, although not quite, tell me about it.

• 50:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, so when we first started out doing this series, we did want to focus on the things that were going on behind the scenes in labs. We made it clear that we wanted to look at prototypes, concepts, things that maybe are still in beta, and that's exactly what this is. We visited Avagant. Avagant is probably best well-known for this crazy headset that they released in 2013. It was then called the Glyph. You guys might remember this. Dieter reviewed it for theverge.com.

• 51:14Nilay Patel?

  One of the best photos of Dieter ever, by the way.

• 51:16Speaker 05

  I think it's one of the best photos of The Verge ever, where Dieter is wearing this retinal, you know, projection headset, and you can literally just see light, but it's video content being shined directly into his eyeballs. It is such a cool photo, so look up his review of the Glyph on The Verge. But now that thing is just called the personal video headset.

• 51:36Nilay Patel?

  Oh, much better name.

• 51:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know. They really, they really just threw a lot of mud at the wall in the brainstorm room, and that one stuck. But this video is not about that. So that was sort of like, okay, if you've heard of Avagant before, you've heard of them because of that. Now they've been working, they started looking at transparent displays. They decided that if they're going to make a headset that offered a really cool mixed-reality experience and was something that people could wear all the time and would sort of make sense to their eyeballs, that it would have to be light-field display technology. And light-field display technology, it's getting a lot of buzz right now because another company you might have heard of called Magic Leap is reportedly working on light-field display technology as well, and they've raised more than $1 billion to work on that tech. So we went to Avagant's

• 52:21Speaker 05

  offices in Belmont, California, which is a little bit north of Silicon Valley, and we saw their new headset prototype that uses light-field displays.

• 52:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. The Magic Leap stuff, it's like crazy, right? Like, it could be a little vapory. But there's a lot of hype and a bunch of famous people have tried it. But here with Avagon, you actually put the thing on your head and it worked, right? Like that's, we have video of it.

• 52:46Speaker 05

  It did work.

• 52:47Nilay Patel?

  Which is like a step.

• 52:48Speaker 05

  It's very much a prototype.

• 52:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:49Speaker 05

  Right. It's like, you know, you, you think to yourself, like what they're saying is, and a lot of technologists are talking about this right now, is this is the stuff that's going to replace our smartphones. They're saying eventually people are just going to be wearing smart glasses. And everyone wants to know if Apple's going to be making them. And everyone wants to know if HoloLens is going to become more viable in the consumer market. Like this is like a big conversation right now. But when you go into the offices or the labs and you see these things, they do still very much feel like prototypes right now. This thing was big, it was kind of clunky, it was tethered to a PC running on Unity. So, you know, there were cameras in the room for tracking purposes. There's a camera directly on the headset itself for tracking purposes.

• 53:30Speaker 05

  Like, it's not totally refined yet, but this is the kind of stuff, I mean, we're like, we're looking at prototypes.

• 53:35Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 53:35Speaker 05

  So you kind of go in expecting this. And it did work as promised. I mean, it did, we get like, kind of technical in the video, but if you're at all interested in getting like a real human being explanation of light field displays, I would go watch the video because I think we do a pretty good job of boiling it down. But basically, there is a way that the human eye naturally perceives light field volumes and naturally sees things. And it's the way in which we focus our eyes, it's the way in which we see volume on things, right? And when you put a headset on generally, and you've got this display just kind of smacked in front of your face, you have to do a bunch of technical stuff in order to make your eyes have that same, well, you know, technical people call it like virgins in accommodation. Like, your eyes have to have this same kind of experience.

• 54:20Speaker 05

  And what the light field displays do, along with some other technology, is they make your eyes feel like they can focus and shift focus and move around and look at digital objects floating in front of your eyes, the same way it would feel as though I'm looking at like the computer screen or the cup of tea that's right in front of me right now.

• 54:37Nilay Patel?

  Right. And that is very different from like smartphone AR that people are, you know, you can see all the AR kit examples out there. It's really different from HoloLens, where you're just looking at a, a flat screen that overlays like reality. This is actually tricking your eyes into believing that those objects are in reality with depth, which it's, it's very hard to communicate that on video. I think you guys did a great job because it's such a challenge. And I think it's one of those things where It's impossible, until people see it or feel it, it's not going to make a lot of sense. But it is, it is the thing that, when you say it could replace your smartphone, it is one of the technologies that, because it makes virtual objects seem like they're in

• 55:20Nilay Patel?

  physical space, you might be able to just have a virtual smartphone, or other virtual objects in the world with you that look like they're real, right? That's the promise, I think.

• 55:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, that is the promise. You're exactly, you're exactly right. And the big challenge, the technical challenge, is trying to figure out, okay, how do we shrink this optical stack, or this optical engine? How do we, you know, if you're going untethered, you have to worry about battery life, and you have to worry about how big and heavy you can make this thing if people are supposed to be walking around with it all the time. There are a lot of technical challenges, and then there are content challenges, too. One of the things that Magic Leap has, has shared is that what they're working on is what you'd call full stack, right? They're working on supposedly the compute system, the headset itself, the light field display technology, they're working with content creators. So they're, you know, because a lot of times people say, well, I'm not driven to try a

• 56:14Speaker 05

  new technology device unless the content and the experience and the apps I'm going to have on it are that, that wonderful, right? So like, there are a lot of challenges beyond just engineering, and you have to get, you have to create a virtual reality or a mixed reality experience for people that makes them say to themselves, like, I want to wear this thing on my face.

• 56:32Nilay Patel?

  All the time.

• 56:33Speaker 05

  I just don't think we're there yet.

• 56:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, like, I'm going to carry this around with me like I carry around a pair of Warby Parkers, and just be like, hold on, let me put them on now, gotta call mom. Like, I don't know, I just, I just think we're like, very far from there. But, but a lot of people think this is, this is the future.

• 56:48Nilay Patel?

  So, when you were wearing the headset, what was it like?

• 56:51Speaker 05

  Um, it was cool because if you can forget about the fact that it is a rather clunky headset and that you're still tethered, my eyes did shift really naturally. It was, one of the experiences I had was a solar system, which I believe other people have seen. The headset that we tried on was new, no one has tried that on yet.

• 57:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you had a little, you had a little squussy.

• 57:11Speaker 05

  A little, is that what we're calling it?

• 57:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, why not?

• 57:13Speaker 05

  In media these days. Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna, just like, we, we defo had a squussy.

• 57:20Nilay Patel?

  Oh no, I'm done. That's it, that was a Veritas, everybody. See you next week.

• 57:25Speaker 05

  Dieter's gonna, Dieter's just gonna quit right now. Dieter hates the word defo.

• 57:32Speaker 05

  Rightfully, rightfully so. So, so the headset that we tried was brand new, but some of the apps were not. But so one of the apps that I think other people have seen before is the solar system. You're walking around a room and you see Jupiter and Saturn and all the planets and you see moons and asteroids and all this stuff. And so that obviously has a sense of depth, right? It's they're all they're all kind of like going linear across the room. And so when I shifted my eyes to look from, you know, the the moon to the sun to another planet, it felt varying. These are digital objects, like cartoon-like objects floating in front of me. And yet it felt, I shouldn't say cartoon-like, graphics, right?

• 58:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 58:11Speaker 05

  And it felt natural. I was like, OK, my eyes are just moving. And the way they're doing that is actually really interesting, too, because they're sending, they're cutting up those images into what they call a multifocal plane approach and sending those images to your eyes at different lengths. So like techno, like, like you said earlier, they're kind of like doing these technical things to make your eyes believe that what you're seeing has volume, is at a certain distance. But of course, it's not because these are not real objects that exist in the real world. It's a kind of crazy. And then there was this one application they showed me where I held up the palm of my hand and different things would appear in my hand. It might be like a lion or a rhino. And then at one point, a syringe just kind of appeared out of nowhere and the syringe went directly into the palm of my hand.

• 58:55Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God. That's so dark.

• 58:56Speaker 05

  It was pretty bizarre. Yeah, yeah, I was like, and it made a squishy noise.

• 58:59Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God.

• 59:01Speaker 05

  I was like, oh, man, this is, you're all welcome, all of you in the podcast who just heard my terrible imitation of a squishy noise.

• 59:07Nilay Patel?

  Look, old time radio, we're gonna start doing coconut effects now. It's gonna be great.

• 59:13Speaker 05

  I think we need Casey on here to do his old time radio voice.

• 59:17Nilay Patel?

  So here's the number one question I saw in sort of the comments. What was the field of view like? Was it, was it all around you? Was it pretty narrow?

• 59:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, so in an earlier version of the video, we did include that information and the video just got so long with us trying to talk about this tech. So we did cut that out. The field of view is about, it's the optical field of view is about 45 degrees per eye. And so combined, you get something that is slightly larger than that. And that is based on what I know, bigger than the field of view on the HoloLens, which has been one of the number one, I don't know, complaints, pieces of feedback, you know, things that we've seen about the HoloLens from people who have tried it. And that basically means like, you know, the thing you're looking through, the thing you're looking at has, there's a box. There's a box in which the digital objects are are visible. And then

• 1:00:10Speaker 05

  when you start to move out of that frame by moving your head around, you see objects start to get cut off because they've bumped up against the edge of that frame, the edge of that field of view. And when it's small, you're like, okay, I, you know, I can look at this digital solar system in front of my eyes in a very narrow field of view. And but in this case, it actually, I did, on occasion, you know, images were cut off, but it felt a little bit, it definitely felt bigger than the HoloLens.

• 1:00:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, I think that the question for these things over time is as they get smaller, because obviously you just want glasses. I think Walt used to say, it's gotta just be glasses. And he would wave his glasses around. It's happened all the time. But once you get to that point, like, you know, size brings its own restrictions. And so like, the field of view question to me is, is related to you, well, you want that to get better, but the constraint you're actually working with is the physical size of the thing on your face. And those things, to me, feel like they're in conflict.

• 1:01:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think that's going to be a really interesting challenge to solve for. Like, in your experience with HoloLens, when you've tried it, have you, have you thought to yourself, like, very sort of actively, this, this field of view, I'm bumping up into the, in the edges of the frame here, I can't, this isn't a very good experience?

• 1:01:23Nilay Patel?

  You know, I've, I've only tried it in like, kind of messy demo environments. It's cool. Like, there's no doubt that it's cool. But I really perceive that as like, there's a screen in front of my face and like, I can see the screen. Right? So I, it hasn't like bothered me because I'm really used to screens. But it also made it just really apparent. Because I mean, that is that technology. It's just a big screen in front of your face, right?

• 1:01:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:45Nilay Patel?

  So like-

• 1:01:46Speaker 05

  It feels like a very meta thing.

• 1:01:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:48Speaker 05

  Because right now, like, I'm staring at a screen, and the screen I'm staring at happens to be a 13-inch diagonal, and I see the content, and then I see other stuff around it that is not digital content.

• 1:01:57Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 1:01:57Speaker 05

  And then when you put this thing on your head, you're essentially being served the same thing. You're being served a window through which you can look at things, and it's- but there are edges-

• 1:02:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:07Speaker 05

  And it's not totally immersive.

• 1:02:08Nilay Patel?

  Right, so that mean, it's like, to me, it feels like, I don't know, the closest analog that people listening to this might know is like, it feels like the heads-up display in a car. If you've ever been in a car with a heads-up display? Like, you're like, "Oh, there's a bunch of information on this display, and I can still see the road," right? Like, it's just projecting onto glass in front of me, and it's- that is what it is. Like, it is true to itself. Um, I think that- It's not pretending that it's more- I don't think Microsoft even talks about it that way, right? Like, like, "Yeah, we put a screen on your head. Just go forth. Like, please invent some things."

• 1:02:40Speaker 05

  It's actually a full PC-

• 1:02:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:41Speaker 05

  Running Windows 10.

• 1:02:42Nilay Patel?

  Here's a Windows computer. It's on your head now. Like, that's great. I think that there's like, there's a long track there of things that I think will be innovative. I think the light field stuff, what Magic Leap, you know, the many, many insane demo videos that they've produced, the demos that Avigan is showing you, it feels like that is an attempt to get rid of that screen perception and to put things into space with you, and that, to me, feels like a different track, right? Where you're- you're gonna not try to like, layer, augment reality, right? Like, layer information over reality. You're gonna try to put stuff into it. They actually call it mixed reality instead, right?

• 1:03:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, they're very intent, insistent on calling it mixed reality, and they were quick to point out that they think what HoloLens does, and it does, to some extent, is give you sort of a 2D or flat image against your eyes, and then there's, you know, some stereoscopic 3D technology that's kind of added to it to try to give it a- this sense of depth, and that what Avigan is doing and what Magic Leap is doing with light field display technology, um, and by the way, Avigan's also using a- And built plugin in Unity that they're doing something with the software there. That that is like what is going to give you that true sense of depth. So.

• 1:04:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, light field displays. I mean, it's pretty nerdy stuff, but it's also. It's also very interesting and I would not be entirely surprised if we start to see companies with more familiar names. Start to get into this, at least that's part of Avagon's plan. They they say that rather than sell directly to consumers like they did with their glyph headset. They are planning on partnering with other hardware makers to get them to buy this optical engine and you use it in some way.

• 1:04:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, because they, if you think about the stuff they also need to make. They need to make an operating system. They need to make apps. They need to, that's a lot of stuff for, I think, a startup. It it makes sense to develop the core tech that enables all this stuff and then let other people who are good at that stuff like worry about it, I think. Or you can do it magically is doing and magically does appear to be building a new OS. And what magically is doing is like crazy, right? Like the the way they talk about it and promote it seems completely insane. And so we'll see like there's like my instinct about that. And I've met people who've like worn the magically headset and they say it's cool.

• 1:05:06Nilay Patel?

  But they seem much farther away than, hey, we just built the tech. Anybody can license it and like build on it on it, which seems to be where Avagon is.

• 1:05:13Speaker 05

  Right. That's exactly right. You have perfectly sort of explained the differences between the two of them.

• 1:05:18Nilay Patel?

  So I get an A2.

• 1:05:19Speaker 05

  Magic Leap is, you get an A2.

• 1:05:21Nilay Patel?

  Everyone's a winner today.

• 1:05:23Speaker 05

  Everyone's a winner. You get an A plus for calling in from vacation.

• 1:05:27Nilay Patel?

  The magic of audio. I'm not actually on vacation. That's tomorrow.

• 1:05:32Speaker 05

  No, no, no, this is time travel. This is the tech. This is.

• 1:05:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm working so hard on vacation.

• 1:05:38Nilay Patel?

  So Lauren, your your series has come to an end. Next level is over. It was great. We're gonna do another one. That seems very obvious that we should do another one.

• 1:05:46Speaker 05

  Yay! Oh my god, this is an exclusive here that you guys are hearing, that we're doing another one.

• 1:05:53Nilay Patel?

  Exclusive green light here on the Vergecast. What are some things, as you think about spinning up the next set of episodes, what are some things that you're thinking about that are some other kinds of prototypes that people should be thinking about?

• 1:06:05Speaker 05

  Autonomous vehicle prototypes, no doubt in my mind that I definitely want to do more on that because I think it's, you know, there was this initial wave of press over the past few years, experiential type things where people were like, "Okay, I got a ride in this new self-driving car from one of the big automakers," or "I tried out this completely hands-free pod from Google," right? And that's great. I mean, that's been the first wave. But now I think we're starting to see more kind of nuanced or interesting technology come out around self-driving vehicles, and we're also starting to see design change. Like, for example, we just went to the Model 3 event last week in Fremont, California, at Tesla's factory,

• 1:06:48Speaker 05

  and saw how the Model 3 interior design is completely different because somewhere in Elon Musk's brain, he thinks that's going to be the autonomous car of the future, and we don't need all the stuff in the interior as we think of a car interior now. We've seen, like, FCA is doing something, Chrysler is doing something really interesting around interior design when you've got a fully autonomous vehicle. So I think there's interesting stuff to explore around that. I think biohacking is still a topic that we're really interested in. There's really interesting stuff going on in silicon right now. AI, of course, I mean, we've only just started to sort of scratch the tip of the AI iceberg. So all of these things are topics like I'm really looking forward to diving into. And if you have any ideas, by the way, we're all ears, so send them in.

• 1:07:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that'd be awesome if you guys send us more ideas. We're always on a hunt. And I will also-

• 1:07:36Speaker 05

  What do you think we should focus on?

• 1:07:37Nilay Patel?

  I think the car stuff, to me. You know, it's funny, if you just look at like our analytics, there was such, everyone was super interested in what it's like to be in a self-driving car, and now we publish, "I rode in a self-driving car," and like, no one cares. Because I think- The fact that cars can drive themselves is well-known. And the next thing people are interested in is, when can I get one? What's it gonna like, cost me? And what's it gonna look and feel like on the inside? And I think that's the next set of things that the industry has yet to figure out. They're like, far away from that. I think the basics of this steering wheel is turning itself. Like, you can buy a $25,000 Ford that parks itself, right? Like, people, they're used to it. And I think the next set is, okay, well, the technology exists.

• 1:08:22Nilay Patel?

  There's all this regulatory stuff. But the technology is gonna affect how the cars work and how they're designed and how people experience them. I think that, no one knows those answers. And there's, like you said, there's a bunch of people trying to figure it out. And that stuff, to me, is absolutely fascinating.

• 1:08:36Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. You're totally right.

• 1:08:38Nilay Patel?

  It's surreal. A lot of conflict on this segment of the Vergecast. Heated agreement. I will also tell listeners, Lauren Good's show has come to an end. But Lauren Grush has got a new show that's gonna spin up right on the tail end of Next Level, called Spacecraft, where she is learning how to be an astronaut. So stay tuned for that. It's gonna be really cool. We're gonna have her on the Vergecast a bunch, just as we've had with Lauren. And, by the way, if your name is Lauren, we will green light a show, no questions asked. Just give me a call.

• 1:09:09Nilay Patel?

  But I'm excited.

• 1:09:10Speaker 05

  Lauren Michaels, give us a ring.

• 1:09:13Nilay Patel?

  But I-

• 1:09:13Speaker 05

  And, no, Lauren Grush has been posting the most amazing photos on Twitter, too. Just this morning, she posted this great photo of herself getting like, strapped into some type of space suit and lying at a table. And I was like, okay, just please come back in one piece. I'm so excited to see her show. I think it's gonna be great.

• 1:09:28Nilay Patel?

  I mean, she's basically done a bunch of astronaut training. Like, she's just, she's gonna go to space.

• 1:09:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:35Nilay Patel?

  The last episode was like a lift-off. But, I mean, I've just made a promise that we definitely can't keep. But, maybe we will. Who knows? It's the magic-

• 1:09:44Speaker 05

  Second season of that TBD.

• 1:09:46Nilay Patel?

  You're gonna put on a light field display, we're gonna send you to space. But stay tuned for Spacecraft. We'll have Lauren on the show when that launches. That's a couple of weeks away. And, once again, Lauren, congratulations on Next Level. Terrific series, and I'm really glad that it got the interest and excitement around it did. And I can't wait for the second season.

• 1:10:03Speaker 05

  Thank you. And thank you for having me on the Vergecast these past few weeks. It's been really fun.

• 1:10:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Okay. Back to vacation, everyone, and we'll turn it back over to Dieter and Paul and Nat.

• 1:10:14Speaker 00

  This episode of The Vergecast, it is brought to you by Qualcomm Snapdragon Gigabit LTE. With download speeds up to seven times faster than typical home wifi, Snapdragon Gigabit LTE can turbocharge all of your connected apps. You can stream 360 degree videos in 4K resolution with minimal buffering. That's bonkers. You can access files in the cloud nearly as fast as you would if they were stored in your phone. You can download hours of movies or music in a matter of seconds. If you would like to learn more about that, you can visit www.snapdragon.com/gigabit today. And you should.

• 1:10:56Speaker 00

  So, every week, without fail, without forgetting, without even calling attention to the fact that we call attention to the fact that we do this every week, Paul has a segment that he does that is called...

• 1:11:10Speaker 03

  Smalt you later.

• 1:11:12Speaker 00

  No. No. No, no, no.

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  Wouldn't be, dear. That is what it's called every week.

• 1:11:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, I wish you would just get, you know, accept it and come to terms with the fact that, uh... Okay, so, this is this device that'll hit Indiegogo.

• 1:11:34Speaker 00

  Of course it's on Indiegogo.

• 1:11:36Speaker 03

  It's called Smalt.

• 1:11:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:38Speaker 03

  It's a smart salt shaker, right?

• 1:11:42Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:11:42Speaker 03

  And what does that mean? It means that it has Bluetooth connectivity, so connects to your phone, and you can like, you can... One of my favorite... It does a lot of things, but one of the things it could do, you could shake your phone.

• 1:11:59Speaker 03

  So that's, it dispenses salt. But it doesn't dispense salt right out of the food. It dispenses salt into a little tray that then you pull out of the salt shaker.

• 1:12:07Speaker 00

  What?

• 1:12:07Speaker 03

  And then put on food. Also, it doesn't grind salt. It has to be the specific table salt consistency. Also, can you... No luxury salts unless you grate grind it to a table salt consistency.

• 1:12:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. Could you like tell it? I'm eating fish. I need this and it'll like figure out how much salt. Can you tell it that what's the thing you do when you throw salt over your shoulder? Why, what like for good luck?

• 1:12:34Speaker 02

  Does it warn you if you overdo your sodium content?

• 1:12:36Speaker 03

  It does. That is actually interestingly the their true selling point of this is that they can keep track of your sodium intake. Obviously you'd have to use only sodium from this stupid Bluetooth speaker that also has mood lighting also can be controlled by Amazon Alexa and you're like, oh, that's convenient. Another Alexa device in my home and it's a salt shaker. How, how nice? No, you have to, you have to talk to the Amazon Echo. You say Alexa to the Amazon Echo, please dispense salt through my.

• 1:13:14Speaker 00

  I want us to build a smart home that only has crap like this in it. I want the small on my table. I want the Juicero on the counter. I want only bad food dispensing pod gadgets in the house and you have to survive living only on these pod devices for a month.

• 1:13:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  I just don't understand what's a big mobility problem with salt shakers before because they were normally like when most salt shakers are the size of your palm and this thing is like the size of an Echo. So no one's going to pick that up. And then like, no one also wants it like, what could you possibly have to say to your salt? Like, please.

• 1:13:54Speaker 00

  Oh, but that's why it has a little tray that you can pull out.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then like you ask for too much salt and it like turns red or blue like in sadness because you're going to die of like sodium intake.

• 1:14:06Speaker 03

  It's an interactive conversation piece.

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  But what about pepper?

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  Why did you buy?

• 1:14:16Speaker 03

  What about pepper?

• 1:14:17Speaker 02

  Is it salt?

• 1:14:19Speaker 00

  Pepper can go screw. I don't care about pepper.

• 1:14:25Speaker 00

  All right, lightning round. Nat, Apple sold more iPads.

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  Heck, yeah, they did. Um, the last time I was actually on the verge of, I'm pretty sure I came on to tell you that I bought one. So I guess I contribute to that. Um, they did, they sold more iPads and I think they actually made money from iPads, which I think was the first time in like some crazy amount of quarters. I want to say 10 to 14 quarters, which is insane. Um, and it's largely thanks to the fact that the new iPads were a lot cheaper, a lot more accessible. It's updated. Um, I think for a lot of customers in growing markets like parts of Asia, um, I think Apple said that this new iPad is their first iPad. And also the timing was just right, you know, like a lot of the very first iPads are now not going to support the latest iOS.

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  So if you want a new iPad that works and is going to continue working, you end up having to buy a new one. And so it just all worked out really well for Apple. Um, they sold 15% iPads this quarter and yeah. That is a thing that they did.

• 1:15:32Speaker 00

  Paul, Fitbit says they're actually going to sell a smartwatch by, uh, by this holiday.

• 1:15:36Speaker 03

  Believe it when I see it. They had some interesting quote. There's something like, don't worry, we have like a larger vision. Like the, the, the, the specific products don't matter as much. This is about the larger vision.

• 1:15:52Speaker 02

  That's the theme of the story, isn't it?

• 1:15:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:55Speaker 00

  Okay, Tamara, I got a good one for you. Arcade Fire says that they've put their new album on a fidget spinner that costs $109.

• 1:16:10Speaker 02

  That's my lassie.

• 1:16:16Speaker 02

  I mean.

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  How is possible that having a USB stick on one end is going to keep it spinning like properly? Like this has to be fake.

• 1:16:25Speaker 00

  No, it through the through the magic of of Arcade Muffet Fire's orchestral, you know, music, it will magically just keep spinning.

• 1:16:35Speaker 02

  Okay, so this is our 21st century version of the double groove. So back in the day, record companies would release vinyl records where there would be like a record within a record. So like, long live the tradition. That's what I say.

• 1:16:48Speaker 03

  All right. How do you get to the record within the record?

• 1:16:51Speaker 02

  You have to know where the double groove is.

• 1:16:53Speaker 03

  What does that mean?

• 1:16:54Speaker 02

  Exactly. That's the whole point. Like, there's a groove within the groove.

• 1:16:58Speaker 03

  Oh, so it's like a second entry point?

• 1:17:00Speaker 02

  It'll play outward. Yes, the record would play outward. There was all this vinyl technology cool stuff that you could do. Or like, real geek heads in the record world. And more in like, a song within a song, or codes within music. So to me, that's like, it's gimmicky and fun, right? So I don't know.

• 1:17:20Speaker 03

  If they actually did it. I think they are just joking. I think they just photoshopped this.

• 1:17:24Speaker 02

  Probably.

• 1:17:25Speaker 03

  But I wish it was what you're saying.

• 1:17:27Speaker 02

  But why not?

• 1:17:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:17:28Speaker 02

  I mean, anything.

• 1:17:28Speaker 03

  No, like, they could like, release encoded, like, they could hide a whole song inside of a song, and you'd have to like, decode it with some prime numbers or something.

• 1:17:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, or, I mean, but the fidget spinner angle is just, I mean, yeah.

• 1:17:43Speaker 03

  It's real cash in.

• 1:17:44Speaker 02

  I mean, you're kind of just saying, this is pop, right? Because it's going to be over and as soon as the fizzle goes away.

• 1:17:50Speaker 00

  Paul, you won't stop highlighting this in our show notes document, so I'm going to ask you, fine. MKBHD got to handle a prototype case plus some weirdness with the red, red phone, the $1,200 red phone. And it just looks really big.

• 1:18:09Speaker 03

  I mean, that's mostly all I wanted to say. He handled three different prototypes. He handled a non-working prototype that shows the size and design of the phone. He handled a prototype that showed this weird holographic, or sorry, hydrogen display, that he didn't really describe what it is doing, but it was it was doing something. And he also handled a prototype that had like their, what he calls moto mods on steroids, like a snap on extra camera that he added that they had. So, and they said in somewhere 30 to 45

• 1:18:51Speaker 03

  days, there'll be an actual working prototype of the actual phone, which I will believe when I see.

• 1:18:56Speaker 00

  Look, I am happy for them to make, to sell 5,000 of these and maybe they'll make money, maybe they won't. The fact that 5,000 of these will exist in the world makes me happy. Like, everyone's gonna say it's a huge failure and what are they doing, blah, blah, blah, but I don't care.

• 1:19:09Speaker 03

  Hey, apparently $1,200 is the hot new amount of money to charge for phones.

• 1:19:16Speaker 00

  All right, last one, Nat.

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 1:19:19Speaker 00

  We have seen specs for the Note 8. They're totally shocking.

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  Are they? I'm not convinced. Uh, yeah.

• 1:19:26Speaker 00

  Are you mad about the fingerprint sensor?

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  Except the battery's a little smaller because for obvious reasons. So, um, I mean, they're gonna unveil it in about like two and a half weeks and basically everything is already out there. We all know what it's gonna look like. We saw some variation of colors, which is basically the same colors that we've already seen from previous Galaxy phones. And there's the stylist. Nothing shocking about that.

• 1:19:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, the only shocking thing is that they, it's stuck with the Note brand, but I mean, I don't know. Fine. Uh, I'm glad.

• 1:19:59Speaker 01

  I mean, the app keeps going. Like, I, I think it would be a bad look for them to just say like, all right, Note 7's food is over. We're not gonna make some anymore. Like, that's just not gonna happen. So they kinda just have to keep on trudging on and try to move past the whole fiasco from last year. And yeah, like I think they owned it enough and they've talked about it enough times about how like horrified they were about the whole thing. And I think they're Gonna leave that all in the past and move on and we're gonna have a no date.

• 1:20:29Speaker 00

  So that is our show. Thank you so much for listening. You should follow people and I have an instruction for you as well. We are Verge on Twitter and on Snapchat and especially on Instagram where we're putting up some really great stories. There's also some really cool stuff from Verge Guidebook showing up on Instagram, so you should keep an eye out for that. Please go to Apple Podcasts and give us a rating because that's nice, preferably five stars, or big like, or whatever weird stuff Apple Podcasts is doing now. If you want to listen to other shows, you certainly can. In fact, you should. There is Too Embarrassed Ask with Lauren Good over on Recode. They also have Recode Decode with Kara Swisher and Recode Media with Peter Kafka. If you want to find more of our shows, they are

• 1:21:12Speaker 00

  over at iTunes.com/theverge. You may notice that there's just the one Verge Podcast, but that's going to change very soon. If you have ideas for what you would like us to do for another podcast, we've got a couple of our own, but you should tweet at Neely. He's at Reckless. If you happen to work in a reference to Wisconsin Valley, I would personally appreciate that. You could also follow the rest of us here on Twitter. I am at Backlon, Paul's Future Paul, Nat is NatGaren, and Tamara is Tamara Tam. And Lauren, who was on earlier, is at Lauren Good with an E. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Rock and roll. Rock and roll, Paul. Snip, snip.

• 1:22:10Speaker 00

  Snip, snip.