The Robot Nearly Killed Me

The Vergecast is back with Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, and Tom Warren. No iPhones were bent in the creation of this episode, nor were any bricked by rogue iOS updates. Microsoft's product strategy turned out to be remarkably similar to Taco Bell's, we discovered, and then there was the robot. The robot is definitely trying to kill us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:06Nilay Patel?

  Hello and welcome to The Vergecast, a show about technology and culture and good times and people and life and love, shapes.

• 0:16Speaker 01

  Poetry.

• 0:17Nilay Patel?

  I'm Neelai Patel.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  I'm Dieter Bodden.

• 0:19Speaker 02

  And I'm Tom Warren.

• 0:20Nilay Patel?

  Oh shit.

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 0:23Nilay Patel?

  Oh damn.

• 0:24Speaker 01

  We've been, we've been trying to come up with alternate names for Tom Warren all week.

• 0:27Nilay Patel?

  Tomas.

• 0:29Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm a fan of T-Dubs.

• 0:31Nilay Patel?

  T-Dubs.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  T-Dub, yeah.

• 0:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Nope.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  No, not yet.

• 0:34Nilay Patel?

  Wait, wait. Tom, can you talk in a fake American accent for the entire show?

• 0:38Speaker 02

  I, I can try.

• 0:43Speaker 02

  Is that good?

• 0:45Nilay Patel?

  Wow, that's great. Anyway, yes, this is The Vergecast. Tom Warren.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Oh, we forgot to set our phones to silent.

• 0:50Nilay Patel?

  No, I forgot to set my phone.

• 0:52Speaker 01

  And then it vibrates.

• 0:53Speaker 02

  That's no phone.

• 0:53Nilay Patel?

  I got an email from a PR person. No, this is my phone. It is currently straight, but obviously there's a conspiracy to make it be a slight angle.

• 1:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03Nilay Patel?

  But no, I want to say, very exciting. Tom Warren, our senior reporter, owner of the Microsoft Hub, leader of the tribe, king of the crazies.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Commander of the Microsoft.

• 1:14Nilay Patel?

  Commander of the Microsoft, which is, I believe, a British military title, is here. He's here to visit New York, which is awesome. And there's a Windows event in San Francisco next week. So he came to hang out in New York for this week and then go to that event next week.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:32Nilay Patel?

  So very exciting. Also, it's not in the room with us right now, but The Verge currently possesses a robot.

• 1:40Speaker 01

  Why isn't it in the room with us?

• 1:41Nilay Patel?

  I don't know.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  Is that weird, a huge fail?

• 1:43Nilay Patel?

  We have a telepresence robot.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:45Nilay Patel?

  It is the most exciting and disruptive and ridiculous thing that has ever happened. And Thomas Ricker, our editor in Amsterdam, is so bad at driving it that literally today he attacked two people and collapsed in the corner.

• 2:02Nilay Patel?

  It is the best thing.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  By the way, it's a double robotic spot. If you haven't seen it, it's an iPad on a stick.

• 2:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 2:07Speaker 01

  It has like a segue.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  It's an old iPad. Yeah, well.

• 2:10Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's what I had.

• 2:11Speaker 02

  It's my old, uh, yeah.

• 2:13Nilay Patel?

  But like, you just know that the first version of this was like made with duct tape.

• 2:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:17Nilay Patel?

  Like some dude like bought a Segway and he was really drunk in his basement. He's like, what if I put an iPad on it and then it's a person?

• 2:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24Nilay Patel?

  Uh, it's the best and I love it and we'll have a long review about it soon. The point that I'm making is that it's great to have Tom here in person, but I can't wait until the next time we have him on the show and he's a robot. That's like a, that's a thing I'm, I'm actually looking forward to because that will be incredible.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  It'd be amazing.

• 2:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So anyway, lots of news this week that we should talk about.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. So obviously the, the news that is blowing up the Twitter for the past two days.

• 2:49Speaker 02

  Well, bending up.

• 2:51Nilay Patel?

  Tom's fired.

• 2:52Speaker 02

  I'm sorry.

• 2:53Nilay Patel?

  Tom is fired.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  No, we promised bending puns. So, um, I actually don't want.

• 2:59Speaker 02

  Don't get bent out of shape.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  I don't want to turn that bend just yet. I want to go around that bend and talk about what I think is an equally bad thing and potentially worse, and that is iOS eight point oh dot one.

• 3:12Nilay Patel?

  Let's, uh, let's hit the news straight.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  For our podcast listeners, I am taking off my headphones and walking away.

• 3:22Nilay Patel?

  Uh, no, iOS eight, eight oh one, right?

• 3:24Speaker 01

  Eight dot oh dot one. So they.

• 3:25Nilay Patel?

  The death update.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. They, they put this thing out and we were like, oh, hey, it's back. And like, it's like health kit apps will finally work.

• 3:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  But no, it broke self cellular radio. So they could no longer get signal. And it also made touch ID stop working and they left it up for a good two hours.

• 3:44Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Before they took it down.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  It turned your iPhone into an iPod.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the only way to, to get to fix it was to, um, manually install the full eight point oh update, uh, from iTunes.

• 3:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that sounds, that's ridiculous.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's crazy.

• 4:01Nilay Patel?

  This is like sloppy apple, right? I mean, that's, they've, they've had these problems before.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:05Nilay Patel?

  But for eight point oh to go out as buggy as it is, cause it's pretty buggy.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:10Nilay Patel?

  Even like the Apple sites are telling me it's buggy, right?

• 4:12Speaker 02

  It's the app crashing, right?

• 4:14Nilay Patel?

  It's the app crashing. Rotation's pretty buggy.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Especially on the, the six plus rotation. On the, on the regular six, it's rotation. And has not been a huge

• 4:21Nilay Patel?

  Well, so the six plus is like, right, it's drawing a bigger virtual screen and then scaling it to the 1080p display.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Right. Well, there might also be some like when it, when it rotates on the six plus, it's like saying to the apps, hey, I'm a rotated six plus. Now give me the double view and that might be like yet another step that could cause a bug. Whereas the six doesn't give you that alternative view. It just rotates.

• 4:42Nilay Patel?

  But anyway, so super buggy rotation.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:45Nilay Patel?

  The paste icon is a travesty. That's a bug that I think Apple should fix immediately.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  And the bold button.

• 4:51Nilay Patel?

  Huh?

• 4:51Speaker 02

  The bold button.

• 4:52Nilay Patel?

  The bold, the bold button is, I mean, that's just like, that's the Tim Cook button. Like, that's how I think about it.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:57Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, so like, just in the health app exists and they released it and they couldn't release any apps for it because there was a bug.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:04Nilay Patel?

  So 8.0 went out super buggy, which is like, sort of, kind of, okay, right? Like, the phones are gonna ship and then you'll put, you'll do a point update afterward. Like, it's not okay. It's not how you want it to be, especially because 7.0 was so buggy.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the, the, the dot O bugs that in 8.0 to me felt like your standard dot O bugs. Like, there's nothing there that made me go, oh my God, this thing is going to be a death march through bug land.

• 5:31Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 5:32Speaker 01

  Which, by the way, is the name of my next movie.

• 5:34Nilay Patel?

  Death march.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  Although this morning.

• 5:37Nilay Patel?

  It's an entirely macro shot movie. It's just your fingers walking through. It's like walking through anthills and shit. Sure.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, but this morning I opened up like Uber, like two seconds later it crashed.

• 5:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  It's like, oh, I'm gonna get a cab. I'll have a look at YouTube then. Then that crashed straight away. I was like,

• 5:55Nilay Patel?

  But that was your move. You're like, well, I'm not going to work.

• 5:57Speaker 02

  I was like, let's watch a cat video. And that crashed straight away. So I was like, what is happening?

• 6:02Nilay Patel?

  So for, but for 8.0 and then 8.1 to be a disaster. Like, how do you not catch this bug? Was it everybody's phone? I didn't update. But it was everybody's phone who updated got screwed, right?

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Well, no, but I think there were people that were on like the five and five S that were okay. And it was like a six and six plus.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  It's a six plus thing, yeah.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Now, like, I've seen really bad OTA updates before on other platforms. And so everybody's making the joke of how could Apple, you know, how could their QA department miss this? And I fully agree with that. How do you let this thing happen?

• 6:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  But running an update through the whole like official process of carrier builds and all that other stuff that happens.

• 6:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  It's not surprising to me that something terrible could slip through. And Tom and I were actually talking about this last night, that it's also probably a different kind of modem.

• 6:57Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Right? A different radio firmware that they don't have, you know, years of experience with. So the idea that there was like a gotcha bug.

• 7:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:06Speaker 01

  Like, it's the worst, but it's also not, it's not entirely surprising and like, you know, hopefully nobody gets fired over.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  As soon as the radio falls over, like the phone radio, then Touch ID will fall over because the, you know.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, so that's what we're assuming.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  Integrity has failed.

• 7:23Nilay Patel?

  Wait, what?

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Well, so we were speculating that the reason Touch ID, maybe the reason Touch ID failed is if the radio is like, nope, don't work. I'm like, I'm not what you expect. The Touch ID, which is like built into the hardware security of the whole system says, oh, this hardware looks funny to me. I'm going to stop working right now.

• 7:43Nilay Patel?

  Oh, interesting.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  That's, that's our guess.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  I think that's, that's how the architecture of that would work.

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  It would have to.

• 7:47Nilay Patel?

  Right. Well, you know, Touch ID has a secure enclave.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:52Nilay Patel?

  That's just, that's just buzzword.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 7:54Nilay Patel?

  Is it, is it an enclave?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  That's they call it an enclave.

• 7:56Nilay Patel?

  They call it an enclave because the NFC is a secure element.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 8:00Nilay Patel?

  Different. Not an enclave.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  Well, you put the element in the enclave.

• 8:03Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 8:03Speaker 01

  Duh. And then you turn up the heat.

• 8:06Nilay Patel?

  That's an autoclave.

• 8:11Nilay Patel?

  What do you want from me, man? So he pulled 801.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:14Nilay Patel?

  We're assuming 802 is coming.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  They have said that it's coming, but it's not coming like tomorrow.

• 8:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  In the next few days.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  They're gonna figure it out. Uh, they put out a... They gave instructions and I, I, I think it's, it's not gonna be super fast. Uh, they, they made it a statement today. It's a few days, next few days. So, maybe they'll surprise us and put it out tomorrow, but if I were them, I would take that full few definition, which I think is three, and take that time to get it exactly right, and also take that time to deal with Ben Gate.

• 8:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, well. It's not been a good week.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  That was a good segue.

• 8:53Nilay Patel?

  Not been a good week. So here's the thing about the iPhone, the, this week with the iPhone 6.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:57Nilay Patel?

  It is, the robot is here. Oh my god.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  It's just wobbling.

• 9:03Nilay Patel?

  Hey David? David, just like rolled up into the robot.

• 9:09Speaker 01

  David, raise the robot up.

• 9:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, push the button.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Like, go up.

• 9:12Nilay Patel?

  Up, up.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  He's just wobbling up.

• 9:15Nilay Patel?

  God, this thing is so amazingly wonderful.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  So the, the best thing that happened with the robot is...

• 9:21Nilay Patel?

  Well, obviously you can hear it.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  That we, we're gesturing. The best thing that happened with the robot is, um, TC got ahold of it and, uh, put the video of the girl from the ring on it.

• 9:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  And the thing is, the thing is deadly quiet. And so you're just sitting there, you turn around and it's right there and she's like standing there. It was terrifying.

• 9:38Nilay Patel?

  Oh, go this way, David.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  He can't hear you.

• 9:40Nilay Patel?

  Well, I'm pointing. I want the people on the camera to see him. Go over here.

• 9:45Nilay Patel?

  No, here, go here, go here.

• 9:49Nilay Patel?

  Come here. Come here.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  That's...

• 9:51Nilay Patel?

  This is, this is some of the worst...

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Podcast gold.

• 9:54Nilay Patel?

  This is some of the worst radio ever made.

• 9:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:57Nilay Patel?

  Uh, there, do you see, you guys see the robot? It's there.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  The dancing robot.

• 10:00Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it is 100% an iPad on a stick.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, hidden behind the microphone.

• 10:03Nilay Patel?

  Uh, that's the future of robotics, everybody.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:05Nilay Patel?

  Uh, iPhone, just trolling everybody. No, so TC, this robot's super quiet.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 10:11Nilay Patel?

  It, it is basically an iPad on a Segway. Uh, the iPad connects to Segway over Bluetooth, uh, and then you call the app. It's like a video conferencing app. So you call the app from like, uh, either another iOS app or a web browser. And then you can drive around, you can drive the robot around, you can put spacebar and like, the camera will look down at the wheels and you can look out, obviously in video conference.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  And it has a kickstand.

• 10:32Nilay Patel?

  It has a kickstand, it has, it has a charging dock, which is like hilarious. But the best thing is like, it's so quiet that you can just sneak up on people. So yesterday, I was just sitting there, like, working. And I looked up and the girl from the ring, the video was just playing like an inch away from my, it was terrifying.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  And I had a cap.

• 10:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I was wearing a cap. We've been putting a lot of baseball caps and like beanies on the robot.

• 10:56Speaker 02

  It's attacking the window.

• 10:59Nilay Patel?

  David sucks at driving. Come on, man.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Is him banging into the window getting picked up on our microphones?

• 11:12Nilay Patel?

  David, I don't know how to, how does one describe this to the audio listener? An iPad on a Segway with David's face on it is repeatedly bashing into the window.

• 11:23Speaker 01

  He's definitely gonna knock this thing over and smash my iPad.

• 11:26Nilay Patel?

  And around it, all of the video staff of Vox Studios has iPhones out recording this. Because they can't help but document this moment.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 11:40Nilay Patel?

  This is like, it's like crappy jaws, like this is what a shark attack looks like in the future. Just like thudding into a window with an iPad. Oh, man, come on. All right, David. He's off now. He's gonna come into this.

• 11:56Nilay Patel?

  I fell over.

• 11:57Speaker 02

  That was bound to happen.

• 11:57Nilay Patel?

  All right, let's talk about the news. Let's straighten out.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 12:02Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 12:04Nilay Patel?

  Close the door, guys.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Why is the door open?

• 12:07Nilay Patel?

  Because they want the robot to come in the room.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Well, we need to, we need to talk about.

• 12:11Nilay Patel?

  Oh, John just picked.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Ben Gate.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Hi, David.

• 12:16Nilay Patel?

  Very, very tippy.

• 12:20Speaker 01

  He's.

• 12:20Nilay Patel?

  All right, you're in here.

• 12:21Speaker 01

  The robot has entered the podcasting studio.

• 12:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  It's lifting up its kickstand and now it's.

• 12:28Nilay Patel?

  Looking at me.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  It's totally going to go and destroy our entire rig. It's gonna knock over the camera.

• 12:34Nilay Patel?

  You got it, buddy.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  This is, this is gonna end in.

• 12:36Nilay Patel?

  I mean, you suck at driving this robot.

• 12:38Speaker 02

  So wobbly.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Why haven't you raised up the kickstand?

• 12:41Nilay Patel?

  You're not on the camera yet, so we're just making bad television and radio.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:46Nilay Patel?

  We're just all looking off screen at you, David. Come here. Come on. Bring it in.

• 12:51Nilay Patel?

  I don't know.

• 12:53Speaker 02

  It's all the cables on the floor.

• 12:54Nilay Patel?

  Just never gets old.

• 13:01Nilay Patel?

  Okay, now it's. Say hi to the people.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  No, David, you gotta, David, you gotta raise the, raise the iPad.

• 13:09Nilay Patel?

  That's the creepiest part of this.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Best part. You gotta click the raise button.

• 13:13Nilay Patel?

  It's in the upper, upper right side.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Oh, he might be on the iPhone app.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 13:21Nilay Patel?

  Well, we've thoroughly trolled the Vergecast.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:23Nilay Patel?

  Yep. All right, well, David screws around with whatever he's doing.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 13:28Nilay Patel?

  Let's talk about these iPhones.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Well, so they're bending.

• 13:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Nine of them, according to Apple.

• 13:35Nilay Patel?

  Nine?

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, so the deal is.

• 13:37Speaker 02

  Well, nine reported cases.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Nine reported cases to them, so. The iPhone six plus is huge.

• 13:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's real big. I'm holding, I have one right here.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, and so you put it in your pocket and like you can feel this thing pressing on you. There's pressure. It, uh, they're, we're back with David now. Um, and so there was a thread on Mac rumors and then a story on Mac rumors contending that this thing through normal use bends.

• 14:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:02Speaker 01

  Uh, like it bananas.

• 14:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  Um, and so it's made, it's made its way around, uh, this guy from Unbox Therapy on YouTube, like, made a video of him, like, physically as hard as he can trying to bend a phone.

• 14:13Nilay Patel?

  Right, which by the way is like, I'm holding the phone. I've been doing this, uh, last night I did it at a bar with Tom.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:20Nilay Patel?

  With the strength of a thousand drinks in my blood. Uh, it's hard to do.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:25Nilay Patel?

  But you have to try to hold it in your hand and bend it. Like, I'm doing it right now and it's not, I'm not cranking it as hard as that guy in the video, but I'm sorry.

• 14:32Speaker 02

  I did a follow-up video the next day with a bunch of devices, right?

• 14:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  And you could see in that one, like, he's grimacing when he's trying to bend the phone, so this is not, not, not normal wear.

• 14:44Speaker 01

  God damn it. I just got attacked by the robot. I'm sitting here trying to listen to Tom, but no, David's just like driving this thing straight into me.

• 14:55Nilay Patel?

  Come on, man. Yo.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  It's going to the camera.

• 14:57Nilay Patel?

  Johnny Five, shut it down. Um.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  He's now he's roaming around the room.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  All right. So finish the story. The guy from David.

• 15:08Speaker 02

  So he did a follow up video.

• 15:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  And you could see in that video was like grimacing when he's trying to bend it. So.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  The force is insane to to bend it. And if you're gonna bend the phone like that.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  So there are, there are lots of theories about this. One is that it's a huge phone. Uh, just don't treat it bad. It won't bend. It's cool. This is a non-story. Two is that maybe it is more prone to bending because of the design of the phone, given that it has, uh, you know, an aluminum back and much of the structure of the phone probably comes from the aluminum back and aluminum tends not to bounce back in the same way that plastic or magnesium or steel does, which are the materials that get used to build other giant fablets. And so we're just like rolling around and it's a scary thing, the idea that this thing that you bought can easily bend. And so it's been, it's taken over the internet for, for two whole days. And even the spectacular failure of iOS eight dot O dot one wasn't enough to turn the story away from.

• 16:01Nilay Patel?

  Ben iPhones.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Apple put out a statement today saying that, uh, to their knowledge, there's only been nine reported cases of this that they know of. And that we do all sorts of great stuff to.

• 16:12Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Test our phones, make sure they don't bend. They've got structural integrity, et cetera, et cetera. But.

• 16:17Nilay Patel?

  Well, I think, I think there's a weird confluence of events here.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:21Nilay Patel?

  I think it's like, a lot of people keep iPhones in their back pockets, right?

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:27Nilay Patel?

  That's a, that's like a thing. That happens a lot. Um, so that's not like a thing like people do. I keep my iPhone in my back pocket all the time. Second, this phone is really thin and really big. So like, it doesn't necessarily want to go in a front pocket, particularly if you're like a smaller person with smaller pants and smaller pockets, right? So like, you're like, here, I'll put it in my back pocket.

• 16:50Nilay Patel?

  And then there's this fear that you've got a surfboard in your back pocket and you're gonna sit on it and it's gonna instantly bend.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Which you shouldn't do.

• 16:57Nilay Patel?

  Which you shouldn't do.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I tried that once with a visor edge. A visor edge is by putting in my back pocket.

• 17:03Nilay Patel?

  Right, and I think it's no good. But people now, when they see the phone, they're like, oh, is that the big one? Everyone's constantly asking if it's a big iPhone, even if it's a little iPhone. They're like, oh, is that the new one? Is that the big one? They're all very curious about it. And then they're like, does it bend? And I think this week has been just proof, just absolute proof. Like, you can love Apple, you can hate Apple, you can love Android, you can hate Android. There has never been a phone that I can think of since the original iPhone, and maybe a little bit the iPhone 4. There's never been a phone that I've experienced, like, it's a cultural phenomenon. Everyone's talking about it. And like, does it bend is like, that's the flaw that makes it unique. Right? Like, it's the thing you know, like, oh, is that the big one? I'm really interested in it. Does it have this flaw that I'm also...

• 17:48Nilay Patel?

  And like, now you have conflict. I've heard about. Yeah, you have this like little like narrative in your head. Whereas like, oh, here's a phone. Is the software bad? Is the story of every phone, right? And that's like, it's just a different total paradigm. Yep. But I've never had any, like, I've never had an experience with a phone where everybody knows what it is. Everybody wants to like examine it to see if it's huge. And then everyone's like, does it have this character flaw I've heard about? Right. And dude, I just don't, I don't think it bends a lot.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  I, so, here's the thing. I, like, my initial thought is, whatever. This is a non-story. I've seen, again, being a huge smartphone nerd, I've been reporting on smartphones for nearly 10 years now. Uh, I've seen lots of phones come out with like, pretty bad hardware flaws that turned out to only affect a very small proportion of phones, but the phone gets a reputation based on that. So, if only because of the reputation problem, uh, Apple needs to be ahead of this as possible.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  But, like, let's, let's, let's say that this is a real problem. And let's say it's a real problem, but it's not that big a deal. It's only gonna affect... A half a percent of iPhone six pluses, based on the way that people use it and just bad luck and whatever. That's a lot of phones that give a lot of bad press.

• 19:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, it's still 10 million.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  It's the YouTube video, right?

• 19:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:08Speaker 02

  When people start posting that to YouTube, goes viral. That's it.

• 19:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Everyone knows about it.

• 19:14Nilay Patel?

  I mean, the Unbox, the Unbox Therapy guy is great. Like, he's been here. He shot videos in our studios and actually in the studio that we're currently sitting in.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  That we're currently sitting in, like, um, you know, he's good friends with Marquez.

• 19:24Nilay Patel?

  We have a great list of, like, that dude's great. They're both great. I think there's two of them. Uh, but like that video, dude's cranking on the phone.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 19:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Like, just super cranking on the phone.

• 19:36Speaker 02

  He wanted to prove it bends and it clearly bends, but that's not normal.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  So, here's the thing that we can't be completely dismissive that like, this is a non-problem because there are at least nine, and I suspect that that number will grow of people that like, aren't doing anything absurd with their phone.

• 19:53Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  It's gonna turn out to be bad.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  Depends if in six months.

• 19:55Nilay Patel?

  That's, that's where you're going. Matt Honan wrote hi- his review at Wired, went up today.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:59Nilay Patel?

  And he's like, "My phone's bent and my screen's a little scratched."

• 20:02Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 20:02Nilay Patel?

  And I'm worried about the, but then he calvates, he's like, "But I still really love this phone."

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 20:06Nilay Patel?

  Uh, which is like, no, but that's like the story of Apple products. It's like, "I got an iPod. I love it. The back is totally scratched." Right? Like,

• 20:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 20:14Nilay Patel?

  The, uh, the headphone jack went out. Like iPod problems. What was the one that got super scratched all the time?

• 20:20Speaker 01

  It was the Nano?

• 20:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, the front of the first Nano, right?

• 20:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 20:25Nilay Patel?

  It scratched like a maniac.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:26Nilay Patel?

  Um, Ross and Chris, I think, are doing a post upstairs where they're listing all of the critical flaws of every iPhone ever made, whether or not they're real.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, the, the, the yellowing screens.

• 20:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  The, of course, antenna gate. Um, we've got, there, there was a thing with, um, dinging and scratching on the, the, the fezal on the five, I think it was.

• 20:45Nilay Patel?

  Well, yeah, the five, literally, you bought a black one, within a day, it turned silver.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:49Nilay Patel?

  Like, Apple, like, kinda, like, the Steve Jobs.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  And then, and then, no, I'm sorry, with the, uh, with the iPhone. Uh, 3G, it existed.

• 20:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that phone was gross. I have a 3G at my house. I was like looking at it last night. I was like, why did they make this?

• 21:05Speaker 01

  Right?

• 21:06Nilay Patel?

  Like, it's like a Beluga whale.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:08Nilay Patel?

  It's, I don't know, whatever. It's, that phone is awful.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  It had 3G.

• 21:12Nilay Patel?

  It did. It did. That was its one, literally the one feature of the iPhone 3G was that it had 3G.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  And the app store?

• 21:19Nilay Patel?

  And the, and the worst design in history. Just the, like, just one of the worst designs in Apple history. Uh, it's just awful. Um, in case anyone's clear, I think the design of the iPhone 3G and 3GS was terrible. And everyone should be ashamed.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Although I really love the 3GS.

• 21:35Nilay Patel?

  Why?

• 21:36Speaker 01

  It had the app stores fast. No, it was, it was ugly as, I'll get out. But like, I promised myself I wouldn't say like.

• 21:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you did it.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  And it's coming out and I'm really mad. Like, I can't handle.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  It's a digging.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  I know, I was on purpose that time. It was a joke.

• 21:54Nilay Patel?

  Um, anyway.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  It was durable. Like, that was, I, you didn't care if the thing got scratched up because it was so ugly to begin with. That you were just willing to treat it like a, like a thing that you, like your wallet. You just toss it around and it was cool.

• 22:05Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  That's how I want a phone to be. I want it to be like, I, do I worry about what I do with my wallet? Do I worry about what I do with, you know, the field notes or the pen that I keep in my back pocket? No, it, you, like, that stuff rattles around in your life.

• 22:17Nilay Patel?

  Right, but that stuff gets worn. So this, this is what I'm saying. This is like the Steve Jobs line about the iPod. Was we ship it with these like chrome backs.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:24Nilay Patel?

  And it gets scratched up and that's how you know you're using it. And like, it feels lived in and it's yours.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:28Nilay Patel?

  And like, either you believe that or you don't, whatever. Um, but most of these other things that you're talking about, they tend to get worn. And that tends to be like, right?

• 22:37Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. I mean, that's like, I'm like, yeah, damn it. One of the reasons I'm using a case, one, because this thing is slippery and we've talked about not wanting to drop it. But two, like, like, I like the idea. Uh, that was an intentional like, of having a case that starts to get worn over time. And then I, if I want to resell the thing on the inside of it, I can. That's what, that's a standard thing that most people do. I'm just not like most people.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Because the iPhone 5 was like the first iPhone I couldn't resell. Really? It was just scratched.

• 23:07Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:08Nilay Patel?

  An iPhone. Oh, the iPhone.

• 23:09Speaker 02

  It was bad.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  Anyway, back to.

• 23:11Nilay Patel?

  Speaking of which, I'm putting this back in my case.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  So, back to Benghazi.

• 23:15Nilay Patel?

  So here's, everyone's asking us why we don't have a story on this and we posted banana video. This is true.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  The people are real mad about the banana video.

• 23:22Nilay Patel?

  Look, you, that, if you are mad at jokes, if you wake up in the morning and you look at a hilarious joke and you think to myself, this made me angry, I want you to stop, just stop what you're doing. I want you to look in the mirror and I want you to just think to yourself, there's no joy in my heart. And then I want you to like feel that, like just feel the void that not laughing at jokes has like created within your soul.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:45Nilay Patel?

  And I want you to move on. I want you to move on from that place. I want you, I want you to tell banana jokes to your friends and coworkers. That's what you, that's what you should do.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  Well, the other thing I want to say is like, the other thing I want to say is that.

• 24:01Nilay Patel?

  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  We're not going to make a definitive statement about this thing because we don't have enough evidence. Anecdotal evidence isn't definitive evidence.

• 24:09Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, so, but no, there's a, we assigned Josh Lowndes in a story.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:13Nilay Patel?

  On the thing yesterday.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:15Nilay Patel?

  And then his phone got killed by Apple software update.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  And he couldn't finish the story.

• 24:19Nilay Patel?

  And he didn't finish it. And that, Apple's PR strategy, as everyone knows, Apple maintains a tight grip on the media.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:26Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and they destroyed everyone's iPhones yesterday.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 24:29Nilay Patel?

  To keep them from reporting on Benghazi.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:31Nilay Patel?

  And.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  That's what happened.

• 24:32Nilay Patel?

  That is absolutely what happened.

• 24:35Speaker 01

  I want a congressional hearing. I want a presidential inquiry.

• 24:38Nilay Patel?

  Right. Diabolical genius, mastermind, control of the media.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 24:41Nilay Patel?

  Um, but we have a story today, so there it is. And I suspect we will have many more stories in the future.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:48Nilay Patel?

  As this like develops, but nine out of 10 million is like, nah.

• 24:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, we interested in to see in six months.

• 24:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  If it's a thing or not.

• 24:59Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's a huge phone.

• 25:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:01Nilay Patel?

  The, the idea that like someone will sit on it wrong is, it's just, yes, that will happen to people.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:06Nilay Patel?

  Right? But like, this is like when Ford puts out a car and people are like, my car crashed.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:13Nilay Patel?

  The new Taurus can be crashed. It's like, yes. Yes, you can destroy any property that exists. And I have. Okay.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Let's move on.

• 25:23Nilay Patel?

  I was gonna just say, holsters, baby.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  No.

• 25:26Nilay Patel?

  I said it. I called it. They're coming back. Get ready for leather belt case holsters.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  You know, I, on Monday, I was.

• 25:34Nilay Patel?

  Get ready for plastic Star-Tac clip it in and out style holsters.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  I was, uh.

• 25:39Nilay Patel?

  It's in your future.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  I was walking.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Maybe for a BlackBerry.

• 25:42Nilay Patel?

  And then they're gonna turn it, they're gonna turn into fanny packs.

• 25:45Speaker 01

  We are, we are moving, we are moving forward to a world where everybody has got shit strapped to their belt again.

• 25:51Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know what's next? You're gonna have your

• 25:55Nilay Patel?

  Batman.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Fablet. Yes, you're gonna have your fablet in, in the holster and it's gonna be too big to take out and talk on the phone because you'll feel awkward. So you'll have a second little tiny Bluetooth phone that you keep in your pocket. And then that's gonna grow over time. And then you're gonna have two.

• 26:09Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Get ready.

• 26:10Speaker 02

  And then I don't wanna be part of this world anymore.

• 26:12Nilay Patel?

  No, so this is true. When I was a college student over the summer, like working in like an IT lab at a hospital.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:18Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I had coworkers and one of them, uh, he loved it. He called the number of things on his belt, his Batman factor.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  This is true.

• 26:27Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and he, his, his like social engineering theory.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:31Nilay Patel?

  Is that if you had a Batman factor greater than three, that you could walk confidently into any room and be like, I'm here to fix the computer. And people would be like,

• 26:40Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 26:40Nilay Patel?

  They'd be like, yes.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:42Nilay Patel?

  By examining your waist.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  So I, yeah, what would, what would he, what would, what would his baseline be? The ba, I mean, okay, phone.

• 26:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Uh, Leatherman.

• 26:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Obviously, multi-tool of some kind.

• 26:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Um.

• 26:54Nilay Patel?

  Pliers that turn into a knife. Yes.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. I trust you explicitly.

• 26:59Nilay Patel?

  Trust you.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  You can do whatever you want to my equipment.

• 27:02Nilay Patel?

  Uh, yeah, and then it was like a PDA.

• 27:04Speaker 01

  A PDA.

• 27:05Nilay Patel?

  Or pager. Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  Pager.

• 27:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. That's rough. Or, and then like, you know, you can, you can go like,

• 27:09Speaker 01

  I never put a PDA on my belt. I would put phones on my belt. I had the, the sweet StarTack holster, which was sweet.

• 27:16Nilay Patel?

  Mistake.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Awesome holder.

• 27:18Nilay Patel?

  Mistake.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  It was awesome.

• 27:19Nilay Patel?

  Mistake.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 27:20Nilay Patel?

  All right, let's talk about Windows. Speaking of things on belts.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 27:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, what's going on at this Windows event?

• 27:27Speaker 02

  Well, so I think the event, so the event's Tuesday, uh, San Francisco, in the middle of an Oracle event, actually, interestingly. Um. But yeah, so there's been a bunch of leaks, um, loads of screenshots of the leak. We kind of got a good idea of where they're sort of heading. So they're focusing on the desktop, me like.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  They're focusing on enterprise. That was the, that was the invite, right? It was like, oh, enterprise, Ray.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. So it has like the enterprise naming. I think that's like, you know, a name drop.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Um, I think, I think they're gonna downplay it though.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  Like, so they've invited one of us to go.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 28:06Speaker 02

  There's not many people going. It's a small venue. They're not live streaming it.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  They're counter-programming the insanely huge Cisco conference that happens every year.

• 28:15Nilay Patel?

  Oh, weird.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  No, it's Oracle.

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Oracle, excuse me, where Oracle literally builds a tent across whatever, whatever the street is on Moscone.

• 28:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Howard Street, like the entire, the entire block becomes Oracle land.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  So yeah, so they're getting everyone out to San Francisco.

• 28:32Nilay Patel?

  Well, to be clear, inviting only one person is like a strategy to keep us from live logging.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 28:38Nilay Patel?

  Right. Like everybody, like the, you know, they, like, the industry knows how we produce media, right? It's not a secret. We go to their events, like we make the stuff.

• 28:45Speaker 02

  You need two people.

• 28:46Nilay Patel?

  You need, you need two people to run. You need one person, at least two photos, one person to take, to write. And that's the way, like, look at any one of our live logs, that's the basic setup.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  You can do a live blog solo, but it is not fun and depending on the, the subject, it's not easy.

• 29:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's super not easy. And the easiest live logs to do, this is actually really like, this is super inside baseball. But the easiest live logs to do have traditionally been Apple ones.

• 29:08Speaker 01

  Except for this year.

• 29:09Nilay Patel?

  Except for this year, because they talk really fast. But usually Apple repeats itself over and over again.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:13Nilay Patel?

  They're like, here are nine features of iOS six. Here are the nine features we told you about. The eighth feature of the nine features we previously, and it's like super easy to do.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:23Nilay Patel?

  Other companies, they just like talk really fast and like just like.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Well, Samsung announces it all at the beginning.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the worst.

• 29:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 29:30Speaker 02

  And then the slide goes within like two seconds.

• 29:32Nilay Patel?

  Right. Yeah. Samsung's like, here's an S dot. And you're like, what the, I don't know what that is. What happened just now?

• 29:37Speaker 02

  What was that?

• 29:37Nilay Patel?

  Uh, rambling. And then there's like a video of like a frog. It's like, and there's like a, like a big booming echoey ribbit sound.

• 29:43Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 29:43Nilay Patel?

  And then it's like.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  Design.

• 29:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 29:47Speaker 02

  You're like, wow.

• 29:47Nilay Patel?

  What just happened?

• 29:49Speaker 02

  An orchestra before.

• 29:50Nilay Patel?

  Right. And then my, the last Microsoft, the last Microsoft event I went to was the Surface Pro 3.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, in New York.

• 29:56Nilay Patel?

  In New York. Uh, that was the one where they like, basically like hit on Joanna Stern directly.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  With a, with a MacBook.

• 30:03Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  It was all about the MacBook.

• 30:05Nilay Patel?

  It was all this MacBook and she was like, and you're like, you're here with your MacBook? How about this laptop? And Joanna's like, but I'm actually working right now.

• 30:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:12Nilay Patel?

  But, uh, that was very entertaining. Um, but we, I didn't live log that one.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  I did that one.

• 30:17Nilay Patel?

  You did that one.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, you and Dan, right?

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Uh, me and Josh.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  Paul's game.

• 30:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Um, uh, wait, I, I wrote about that for Vox. That's what I did. Um, I was like, why was I there? Because I was writing a different publication. Um.

• 30:32Speaker 01

  Well, that was the original Surface, whatever.

• 30:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, many Surface events. So Microsoft events, Panos is really easy to live log.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:40Nilay Patel?

  Cause he's really, like, he's really direct and really slow. Like, he's, like, slow in the sense that he's like, here are the words that I'm saying.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:48Nilay Patel?

  Uh, Ballmer was impossible to live log because he was just screaming.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  And you, you.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Do you guys hear?

• 30:54Nilay Patel?

  The robot's moving.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Oh. Oh, okay. Oh, it's parking itself, I guess.

• 30:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 31:00Speaker 02

  The kickstand.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  No, someone's coming in here to troll us right now.

• 31:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's just rocking. This is almost certainly TC. Who is this?

• 31:10Nilay Patel?

  Come on, man! Yeah, it's TC.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  No, the other, the other thing about, uh, live logging Steve Ballmer is you, you were every, if you were typing, you were jealous of the person taking photos because he makes so many hilarious faces.

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  That, like, you were jealous of that person. And also you wanna like.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  You, you have like a back catalog of Ballmer pictures.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, you also want, I've also got some Ballmer pictures that I actually like genuinely personally feel bad about taking and putting on the internet because I was in a hurry to get a picture of him up. Um, I'm very sorry, Steve Ballmer. I apologize to you directly for the picture that I took of you at the.

• 31:46Speaker 02

  Surface event.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  Surface event. That was my fault.

• 31:49Nilay Patel?

  No, no, the thing about live logging like that, well, we should actually talk about Microsoft. And I was, the last one, I was, oh my God!

• 31:55Speaker 02

  Whoa.

• 31:57Speaker 02

  Nearly, the robot nearly killed me.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  The robot just came down like a freaking axe.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  Still here.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  It was gonna, it was gonna cleave off a quarter of Tom Warren's head. It's just, it's just rashing down.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  That robot does not like Windows.

• 32:13Speaker 01

  No, it doesn't.

• 32:15Nilay Patel?

  Uh, man, that robot was super. He was super unhappy.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  That was a, yeah, it was close call.

• 32:20Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Right. Now I'm get, getting back to normal after nearly dying.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. So like, yeah, so we can't live blog it essentially. We can try, we do what we can, but, um.

• 32:36Speaker 01

  So, but.

• 32:36Speaker 02

  But they're downplaying it.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Right. And so that means that we are not going to see a full giant extravaganza of Windows. It's gonna be, we're gonna do this thing and this thing and this thing, and we'll tell you more about it later. And here's some really nerdy stuff. Like, that's what I'm expecting.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  I have a feeling it's gonna be, here's all the stuff you've seen in the leaks and this is what it all means.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay. What is that stuff?

• 32:57Speaker 02

  Um, so start menu, coming back, kind of known about that for a while. Um, they're doing like virtual desktops, which is something that Linux and, you know.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  Loads of other operating and Mac as well.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:11Speaker 02

  Um, they've had for years. It's something that power users have always demanded and enterprise users and stuff. So finally getting that. Um, and then they're doing a lot of UI changes, which I don't think they're gonna show next week.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 33:25Speaker 02

  But like, kind of, not, I wouldn't say drastic, but I think they could, the end result could be drastic.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Um, so they're finally, which is a long, another long running thing and a joke in Windows is that you can go into certain aspects of Windows and there's these crazy old ass icons from like 1995.

• 33:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  Um, so they're, they're trying to clean up a lot of those icons and stuff, finally. Um, and then you've got Cortana, uh, gonna be on the desktop, pretty much expected as well.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Notification center.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, just like a lot of focus on the desktop. So it's like the start screen, we still can't, we're still not fully sure if it's gonna be gone.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  Or if it's gonna expand or, I think they're still kind of experimenting with that. Well, like, I think that's gonna be, the big thing about this is Tuesday, they'll, you know, this is Windows nine. Well, they're not gonna call it Windows nine, they'll call it Windows.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Whatever they call it.

• 34:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. You don't think I call it Windows nine?

• 34:23Speaker 02

  Technical preview is what it'll be called.

• 34:25Speaker 01

  Well, here's what I'm worried about.

• 34:27Nilay Patel?

  Wait, why would they not call it Windows 9?

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Well, because I guess, well, I don't know, because it's Microsoft.

• 34:37Nilay Patel?

  I mean, like, it's just, it's, come on.

• 34:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I think.

• 34:42Nilay Patel?

  There's only, they think there's one choice.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, we call it Windows 9.

• 34:46Nilay Patel?

  Of course.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  Because it's just readers understand what that means. It's the next version of Windows, something. But yeah, I think they're gonna call it Windows Technical Preview.

• 34:54Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  And it'll be available sort of early October, probably the first or second week.

• 34:58Nilay Patel?

  I mean, this is like, they're walking back Windows 8. They're getting rid of Windows 8.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  On the desktop, yeah. Because, and at the same time, they've got this other thing, which is, like, some people internally refer to it as Windows Mobile. So it's like, that's just like unofficial code name. Yeah. I'm not trolling you.

• 35:14Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 35:15Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 35:16Speaker 02

  And it's basically Windows RT.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Do we need to explain why we freaked out about that? Do people not remember that Windows Phone used to be called Windows Mobile?

• 35:23Speaker 02

  I think most people listening or, I think people know.

• 35:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. You, you people know.

• 35:29Speaker 01

  I want them to call it Pocket PC.

• 35:31Nilay Patel?

  They're calling Windows 9, internally, Windows 9 is called Windows Mobile.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  No, so, so there's Windows 9, which is, well, we don't know, it's gonna be called Windows 9, but there's Windows, shall we say?

• 35:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 35:41Speaker 02

  And then there's this other product, that's Windows Mobile, which is essentially, well, it's codename, like, I don't know if that's the actual official codename, but that's what a lot of people refer to internally, so, including the chief of Windows.

• 35:55Nilay Patel?

  And that's, and that's the next version of Windows Phone?

• 35:57Speaker 02

  So that's Windows Phone and Windows RT combined. So essentially, that's Windows Phone 9, shall we say?

• 36:03Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 36:05Speaker 02

  And that product's gonna be primarily for tablets.

• 36:08Nilay Patel?

  Okay. The booming tablet market. The booming, just growing tablet market.

• 36:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. But I have a feeling, so that, so alongside all of this, they do those features on the desktop, they're also doing like a big refresh of IE.

• 36:23Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:24Speaker 02

  So that's gonna be the interesting one, whether they, they note that next week at all.

• 36:27Nilay Patel?

  Right. Because you've been writing about like a big refri, like a low-cost laptop initiative.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, they're doing that this holiday season, they've, they've already cut Windows to, to, to free on the tablet side. And they've got Windows eight point one with Bing. So that's that's like cutting the license off again.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Nailed it.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  But it's no, it's no really, really no difference to.

• 36:50Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? That's like a, like a revamped IE on a free Windows on cheap hardware is like, yeah, it's a Chromebook, right?

• 36:56Speaker 02

  You could imagine, and I'd, I'd expect the way that the, that they're looking at Chromebooks because they see them as a serious threat. There's no doubt about that.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, they have to.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  So you'd imagine this Windows mobile, whatever it's going to be called, would scale up to some sort of like 10 inch laptops or like those sort of like netbooky.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  I've got an idea for what they should call those things that no one has ever thought of before. Call them Metro laptops.

• 37:21Nilay Patel?

  Metro books.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Metro books.

• 37:23Speaker 02

  And the Germans would be.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I mean, are they ever happy?

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Well, they were over the summer.

• 37:31Nilay Patel?

  I just gave a presentation about Vox Media, 26 German media executives. This is true.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  And they were happy.

• 37:35Nilay Patel?

  They were, I mean, they were, they, they weren't angry.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:39Nilay Patel?

  So that was like a win.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  I'm only allowed to make fun of the Germans because I have such a German name.

• 37:42Nilay Patel?

  Right. I'm just saying, they were, they were, they were pleased enough with us at the end of the presentation to present us with a piece of the Berlin Wall.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  What?

• 37:48Nilay Patel?

  That's true. It's upstairs.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Wild.

• 37:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it was strange. But they asked me, they, they asked me a number of questions, like the business and like the video and like, you know, how do you make all this work? And I answered the question and he looked at me and goes, you didn't answer my question. And I was like, wow, I'm in trouble right now. But we got through it. Together, me and the Germans.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Here is what I'm terrified with the world of Windows that you're describing about. There's going to be this Windows mobile, this light version. There's going to be Windows on the desktop where the pieces from these classic start screen get moved into maybe a start menu and they start like fiddling with some other bits of the UI. I am worried that Microsoft is making software the same way Taco Bell makes new menu items. We've got a bunch of ingredients and we're going to put them over here and package them this way. Ah, nobody bought that one. We're going to take them and we're going to get rid of that one. We're going to add this one that we use in this other thing.

• 38:41Nilay Patel?

  Windows Truppa.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, because they went, they went so far. And crazy with Windows 8 and obviously it's, you know, put a lot of people's backs up.

• 38:49Nilay Patel?

  They didn't talk about this yesterday. They didn't go far enough.

• 38:52Speaker 02

  Well, yeah.

• 38:52Nilay Patel?

  They went so far down the road of crazy that everyone was like, why don't you just split them up and call the thing Metro? And like, call this Windows and they're like, no, that would be too crazy.

• 39:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:01Nilay Patel?

  What if we just got rid of the start button? That's crazy enough. And it's like, you screwed up.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:06Nilay Patel?

  But we've been talking about this for three years.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Give us a cohesive, like, product sense of like, this is this line of things and they work this way. And this is this line of things and they work this way. And these are the specific things that they share and this is how you understand it. And make sure that understanding those two things and their interconnections doesn't require that I say three barely different variations of Windows catchword.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  Which this kind of plays into them dropping the Windows Phone sort of marketing brand.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:38Speaker 02

  Over the holidays.

• 39:40Nilay Patel?

  Wait, really?

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it's and the whole probably plays into the whole thing of.

• 39:44Nilay Patel?

  They're gonna start calling it phones with Windows.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Well, yeah.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  More lumia or just the other way around.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's the same thing. But I think it's gonna like, I would not be surprised if this version of Windows is called Windows or marketed simply as Windows rather than Windows 9. And the same on the phone because you're getting to that point where it's been like, I don't know, like four or five years? Since they started this vision of like apps, Windows apps across all of the form factors. And they're kind of, they're realizing it now. But it's like, how do they sell the message?

• 40:14Nilay Patel?

  The Xbox One has been out for a year.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 40:17Nilay Patel?

  And they were like, it has three operating systems and we're gonna have to be revolution in the living room.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:22Nilay Patel?

  And Kinect is like the interface of the future.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. They, they took, they took Kinect and then they put it next to some ground Xbox.

• 40:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  And then they sprinkled on some Windows.

• 40:34Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  And then they wrapped it in a tortilla of a giant, huge box. And then they wrapped it in a.

• 40:41Nilay Patel?

  Took the sour cream gone out.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  They took the sour cream.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  You've had way too much Taco Bell.

• 40:44Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Taco Bell's delicious. I mean, I'll put that out there.

• 40:47Nilay Patel?

  One time I ate thirty Taco Bell tacos in thirty minutes.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  I don't wanna hear about that.

• 40:51Nilay Patel?

  As a comp- as a, obviously a contest.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Okay, I wanna hear about that. Did you win?

• 40:55Speaker 02

  You were drunk, I assume.

• 40:56Nilay Patel?

  No, no, we, no, so here's the problem. Wasn't drunk.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Hard shell, soft shell?

• 40:59Nilay Patel?

  Tied, tied my friend.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 41:01Nilay Patel?

  Uh, hard shell. Don't know why, don't know why.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  That's dumb.

• 41:04Nilay Patel?

  Uh, you will never know pain in your life, like the pain of knowing that a hard Taco Bell tortilla is in your mouth. And like, you're waiting for the moisture of like, the great F meat to like, eat, because you've eaten twenty-eight of them.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:17Nilay Patel?

  Ah, just an awful feeling. But we tied. We forgot to buy an odd number of tacos. So we tied, like idiots, uh, and then we had a beer drinking competition.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:28Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and then we tied that too.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  Regular taco or taco supreme?

• 41:32Nilay Patel?

  Regular. Idiot, idiot move. Just, I mean, come on, we, I was a young man, uh, just experimenting.

• 41:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:38Nilay Patel?

  I mean, that was the experiment I choose to have. Uh, and then, uh, the Bears won against the Packers and I basically felt like-

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Oh, so a really good day all around.

• 41:46Nilay Patel?

  Just, no, like, in hindsight, one of the worst experiences I've ever had, top to bottom. But at least I've had it and that's, that's the, that's the texture of your life. That's how you know that you've lived a full life, by having that memory in your back pocket.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:01Nilay Patel?

  Uh, so I actually haven't eaten Taco Bell in like, four years. But I understand how they construct their food, and that's Windows.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Well, it could be, if they do it wrong. If they like, slap some stuff together and give it a crazy name.

• 42:13Nilay Patel?

  Well, here's, like, this cohesive vision thing is like, they, Microsoft has this classic problem, right? It's a classic problem of any, like, organization, right, where instead of doing the first small step, right? And just doing it and seeing what happens, they wait to like, roll out some like, huge thing.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 42:32Nilay Patel?

  Right, here's this monolithic set of decisions we made. Um, and they just, that's the, that's apps on Xbox.

• 42:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:40Nilay Patel?

  They could have just rolled out a Windows App Store for Xbox, limited it to just games.

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:46Nilay Patel?

  Just games, nothing, nothing else.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Because they're concerned about like, the connect privacy and all this sort of stuff, but- No one, no one's really developing for Kinect, like in, in, in the Xbox setting.

• 42:58Speaker 01

  Well, there's the one game that Andrew, Andrew Webster wrote about, that the detective game. That's pretty cool.

• 43:02Speaker 02

  I mean, there's people using it for hacking and like genuinely interesting ways, but that's all away from like the Xbox. There's no really developing games.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. The only way I use my Xbox right now is it's cool to log in the second person to walk in the room and be like, ha, ha, it saw your face and now you're logged in. Isn't that creepy? That's the only thing I use a Kinect for is that ha, ha moment.

• 43:24Nilay Patel?

  Right. I might, the only thing I use it for is I play FIFA and I swear at the TV and it, it scolds me.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:30Nilay Patel?

  It's nice. But other than that, like, you know, I, I just got the new Madden. It's constantly like telling you to do Kinecty things. It's like wave your hands, yell these words. I'm like, I don't want to do any of that.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 43:41Nilay Patel?

  I'm just not doing any of it.

• 43:43Speaker 02

  But it's funny because you say like they, like the big thing with the Xbox, they could have done the apps and stuff. But it's like every other version of Windows, they always try and do something big. So Vista, they tried to do like a new file system, a crazy new UI. And they walked a lot of that back before it shipped and it was delayed and that caused issues. And the product just wasn't quite as big as it should have been. But it's kind of like every other version of Windows has almost been like that. Historically back to the very early days of Windows.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  So bottom line is what are we going to get next week from Microsoft that we're excited about?

• 44:14Speaker 02

  So I think we're just going to get them basically admitting we're focusing on desktop. We're getting rid of all this touch, touch stuff out of it.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Really?

• 44:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:23Speaker 01

  And then Windows Mobile.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  And then Windows Mobile will be like, this is our product for touch.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  Are we going to get that next week as well? Or are they not going to mention that?

• 44:31Nilay Patel?

  Is that going to run on Intel or ARM?

• 44:33Speaker 02

  So that will be ARM, the Windows Mobile product.

• 44:35Nilay Patel?

  So what will run on Intel tablets?

• 44:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I would assume that they would have to do a SKU that's for Intel as well. So that's, that's where it all gets confusing is because, so the Surface Pro 3 is a hybrid, right? So you would use it as a desktop machine, essentially as a laptop.

• 44:52Speaker 01

  It's the Doritos Locos of.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. So it's like, it's what's going to be ultimately interesting.

• 44:59Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  It'd be the most interesting thing is to see how they handle those devices because they're intel. They're not.

• 45:05Nilay Patel?

  And the surface structures are like Halo device.

• 45:07Speaker 02

  Hmm. So it's gonna be like, how do they, because there's talk of them removing the charms bar, which is the thing you swipe in from the side. Um, and that seems to be going. So it's like, yeah.

• 45:19Nilay Patel?

  Wait, what's left? Then you just have Windows seven with a janked up start menu.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, essentially.

• 45:26Nilay Patel?

  Oh, Microsoft.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  But, but.

• 45:28Nilay Patel?

  Somewhere Steven Sinofsky is just like chugging a beer and being like, oh, these guys.

• 45:33Speaker 02

  But it's this tale of Windows, so Sinofsky kind of fixed Windows seven, right? And then tried a big new thing with Windows eight and, you know.

• 45:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they're gonna fix Windows nine by removing Windows eight.

• 45:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, removing the sort of key elements. Yeah.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Which is.

• 45:50Nilay Patel?

  Is that all just because like enterprise isn't buying eight?

• 45:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. So they, they, they, they don't want to be stuck with another Windows seven, uh, Windows XP situation.

• 45:59Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  Where people are like taking ages to upgrade and.

• 46:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And they're afraid Windows seven is Windows XP.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  Exactly. So which it kind of is heading that way. Cause that's what people are upgrading to. They're not upgrading to Windows eight.

• 46:12Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 46:12Speaker 02

  Like enterprises, business customers. So I think next week is the enterprise part of that is because they're going to come back and say, look, we're serious about making Windows what you want it to be.

• 46:23Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Please bear with us until we, you know.

• 46:27Nilay Patel?

  And so they're bringing one person from every publication, not live log and not stream.

• 46:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think it's gonna be low key. It's gonna be like, this is, we showed a little bit of this earlier this year. This is our vision. This is what we want to do.

• 46:38Nilay Patel?

  Or, or it's like so bananas that they put all the money into like how crazy it's gonna be. And they can't afford like seats in a big venue. It's like Nadella rides in on a dolphin.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Nadella, no, no, no, Nadella has been spending the past six months, instead of making sure that there's a coherent product strategy for Windows. He's been training with Cirque du Soleil.

• 46:57Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  He's gonna be inside the giant wheel spinning on the stage.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  He's gonna be holding two service profs and then swinging in.

• 47:03Nilay Patel?

  So is the surface gonna stay?

• 47:05Speaker 02

  Uh, well, let's see how the Surface Pro free goes. I mean, they've put a lot of marketing behind that.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:10Speaker 02

  I don't know the exact figures, but.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  It would be such a huge egg on the face of the market.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  And it's a good device now.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 47:15Speaker 02

  If they'd waited and brought that out initially.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  I think it would.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  Waited for the third version.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  It's the typical thing with Microsoft. It's like the third product. Like it's the same.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've got one in my house. It's nice.

• 47:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, that is nice. Um, yeah, I think it will stay like it seems to be selling, so I think it will stay. But the question is what they do on the software side.

• 47:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:37Speaker 02

  Like that, that to me is like, it got a little bit messy with the Windows eight point one update and the subsequent updates. Like, cause they cut, started to step it back a little bit.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  Touch stuff. It's like, yeah.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Can we also, can we, can we?

• 47:51Speaker 02

  What are they gonna do?

• 47:52Speaker 01

  We transitioned, as long as we're talking about awkward products that seem to try and be in the middle of two other products.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  I'm ready.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  We talk about Passport.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  The BlackBerry Passport. Uh, we got a review up from, uh, Dan Seifert and.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  It's garbage.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  You had one job. BlackBerry, you had one job and your one job was to build a device with an awesome.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Keyboard.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  Hardware keyboard.

• 48:14Speaker 02

  And you blew it.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  And you blew it.

• 48:16Nilay Patel?

  No, I would say they had one. Here's, here was, here's what BlackBerry's one job really was.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 48:20Nilay Patel?

  Like really and truly, here's what it was. It was to use Android.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, well.

• 48:25Nilay Patel?

  That was their choice. They, they, they make the obvious, blatantly obvious choice.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:30Nilay Patel?

  To use Android, just like, uh, Nokia didn't make the blatantly obvious choice to use Android. Right?

• 48:36Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 48:36Nilay Patel?

  And like, here we are. And like, it doesn't like BlackBerry is like.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Nobody's making money off of Android apart from Samsung, Microsoft and.

• 48:45Nilay Patel?

  Right, but if you're BlackBerry and you're make like, I, I look at this phone. It's like, okay, your hardware keyboard's weird, but your industrial design is like fairly okay.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 48:54Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like, yeah, you made a weird phone with like a square. Is there a gif of the robot?

• 49:00Speaker 01

  The robot phone.

• 49:01Nilay Patel?

  Can you tweet the gif of the robot?

• 49:02Speaker 01

  I'm gonna tweet it right now.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  The robot falling is the gesture that I make in the gif is me holding both my hands out of my mouth and jumping back and it is the exact same thing I did when I looked at the gif itself.

• 49:19Nilay Patel?

  So now we have gifception.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:23Nilay Patel?

  But I want everybody who's listening.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Tweeting an animated gif is so hard.

• 49:26Nilay Patel?

  I want everybody.

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Can I do it from the main Twitter client? Does that work?

• 49:29Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  The Twitter app?

• 49:31Nilay Patel?

  He's TweetDeck.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  You have to use the web. That's right. It's gonna crash out.

• 49:35Nilay Patel?

  TweetDeck is the web.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  So, uh, no, I use a TweetDeck app.

• 49:37Nilay Patel?

  Which is a web view.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  It's failed for me in the past.

• 49:40Nilay Patel?

  Uh, but it's true. It's a true fact about the web.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Well, I will tell you that this is.

• 49:44Nilay Patel?

  We're deep in the weeds of TweetDeck.

• 49:45Speaker 01

  This is going to fail super hard.

• 49:47Nilay Patel?

  Here's what I know about this moment that we just had.

• 49:50Speaker 01

  Oh, wait. Uh, is there a Vine? Uh, our producers are speaking to us and they love it when I talk about them.

• 49:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, John Legum Mercino is talking to us.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  John, John, speak to us. Tell us, tell me what to do.

• 50:01Nilay Patel?

  Jordan Oplinger.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  There's no good answer, he says.

• 50:04Nilay Patel?

  Okay. Here's what I, here's what I know about this moment. We were talking about the passport.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:09Nilay Patel?

  And Dieter got a notification on his pebble.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:12Nilay Patel?

  And then he looked really. Eyes lit up. And then, no, he didn't look up. He looked really serious and I was like, what the hell just happened? And he started furiously monkeying with his computer and then he started giggling like an idiot. Like he was like, it's gif.

• 50:24Speaker 01

  Well, hang on. This happens like 50 times a day. I mean, let's be clear.

• 50:28Nilay Patel?

  I'm really excited about this.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Oh, this is not gonna work. It's a two megabyte gif.

• 50:33Nilay Patel?

  It's fine. Let's put this gif in the world.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  I'm working on it.

• 50:36Nilay Patel?

  Where it belongs.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  Just wait.

• 50:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 50:39Speaker 01

  Hang on. So, okay, so the passport.

• 50:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Is got a huge screen. It's the exact same size as the passport.

• 50:46Nilay Patel?

  Uh, the whole phone is the same size as a regular passport.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:50Nilay Patel?

  The screen itself is the size of a slice of American cheese.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:53Nilay Patel?

  That's Joanna. Joanna video.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Perfect. Um, the keyboard has the spacebar jammed up into the final row of keys.

• 51:00Nilay Patel?

  Which is confusing.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  It's capacitive, which is cool, so you can scroll on it. It uses the Amazon Android App Store for apps.

• 51:05Nilay Patel?

  Which is crazy.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  Which means it gets everything except for Instagram, which is the thing designed for square things.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Right?

• 51:15Speaker 02

  Yeah. It's amazing.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Oh, and its whole job is to help you be productive and message people and handle email. And the BlackBerry Hub is still a fiasco.

• 51:26Nilay Patel?

  But here's the thing, this is what I'm saying, right? They are trying to build this weird half Android thing on the Q and X.

• 51:34Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 51:34Nilay Patel?

  And they just shouldn't just like use Android and be the BlackBerry that runs Android.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:42Nilay Patel?

  And then like do whatever Samsung is doing.

• 51:44Speaker 01

  Well, they're trying to do that now. Yeah, the problem is they they believe that in order to get their like their mill spec, their like high end security stuff, they can't have Android be the base.

• 51:54Nilay Patel?

  But that's like, that's like this tiny, like make that phone, right? Like if HTC can make one phone that runs Windows phone and it's the same phone that runs Android, like make one phone that runs your stupid software and make one phone that runs software everybody wants.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  Yep. And like the enterprise, the bez servers and that sort of stuff, that stuff is slowly like fading away.

• 52:13Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 52:13Speaker 02

  Like it's still important in certain markets, but everyone's bringing their own devices into work like.

• 52:18Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 52:19Speaker 02

  And businesses are going to adapt for that, so.

• 52:21Nilay Patel?

  Right, I mean, I brought this giant phone to work.

• 52:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:24Speaker 02

  I mean, they don't have that.

• 52:25Speaker 01

  It's not in your pocket either, you're sitting, you set it on every table you sit down at.

• 52:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I just carry it around. I think it's somewhat threatening to have a giant phone in your hand at all times.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  What if it?

• 52:34Nilay Patel?

  Like anytime I could just pick this up and remove you from my field of vision.

• 52:38Speaker 01

  What if instead of belt holsters, we get like arm?

• 52:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Things.

• 52:42Nilay Patel?

  Oh, I'd be into that. It's like the next generation of that Nokia phone in the matrix. But instead of that, it's like you're wearing a gigantic arm holster.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  They're like, they're like the Assassin's Creed blades.

• 52:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. That's, I'd be into that.

• 52:53Nilay Patel?

  With the Assassin's.

• 52:54Speaker 01

  And then if you want to go swimming, you've already got a paddle attached.

• 52:57Nilay Patel?

  Right, this is the one thing I will say about Assassin's Creed that is, I think, under, under, under commented upon.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Uh, the fact that.

• 53:03Nilay Patel?

  They have to cut their fingers for the blades.

• 53:05Speaker 01

  Why? I don't.

• 53:07Nilay Patel?

  Cause they do, they like in the first Assassin's Creed, the dude's mid like third finger is sliced.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  Cut off, that's right.

• 53:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, yeah. Cause the blade can come out.

• 53:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:15Nilay Patel?

  Which is seems like a really bad design. Like, we couldn't figure this out, like.

• 53:20Speaker 02

  Just chop the tops of your fingers off.

• 53:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, can you just remove your finger? That, that will, that more than anything will not let people know you're assassin.

• 53:28Speaker 01

  This, this, this thing was developed before they like.

• 53:30Nilay Patel?

  Hey, look at that guy.

• 53:31Speaker 02

  That guy's got two missing fingers.

• 53:32Nilay Patel?

  I wonder if he's gonna stab everybody in this room.

• 53:37Nilay Patel?

  No one will know, no one will know who you are.

• 53:42Nilay Patel?

  I'm telling you, under reporter on, those games taught me everything I know about the Renaissance.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Anyway, don't buy a BlackBerry passport. That's my advice.

• 53:49Nilay Patel?

  Let's serious. We're gonna talk about magicians real quick and we can wrap the show.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Ah, yeah. So we have an amazing feature up with an amazing video about.

• 53:57Nilay Patel?

  One of my favorite videos of the Verge I've ever done.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, about Colton Michigan, the magic capital of the world.

• 54:03Nilay Patel?

  Of the world?

• 54:04Speaker 01

  The world.

• 54:04Nilay Patel?

  So you should go watch this video. Here's, this is not, we're not gonna do any intelligent discussion. I'm just gonna aggressively insist that you go on UnderTheVerge.com and watch this video.

• 54:13Speaker 02

  And read the, read the post.

• 54:14Nilay Patel?

  And read the story. Kyle, Kyle Cheka wrote a great story.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 54:17Nilay Patel?

  But this video, it's like, the story is great. The thing about the video is that it's hard to believe that this town of like 1,200 people, that has three, one stoplight and three magic shops, all of the people who own the magic shops somewhat hate each other. Because there's like family rivalry stretching back to the 30s, which is incredible. There, there's like a local Amish population, so there's like horse and buggies riding through this town.

• 54:45Speaker 02

  It's insane.

• 54:45Nilay Patel?

  Uh, the horse and buggies have like turn signals, which is the best. Uh, it's just, like, all of that's amazing. And then once a year, there's the biggest magic gathering in the world, where like a thousand top magicians just descend on this town and do magic tricks for each other all day long. It's just one of the.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  Sounds wild. We have to go.

• 55:03Nilay Patel?

  I mean, we, we did.

• 55:04Speaker 02

  Well, no.

• 55:05Nilay Patel?

  But we, you and me.

• 55:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's go.

• 55:07Nilay Patel?

  Let's go. Thanks, Tom Warren. Hey, this is Tomas.

• 55:09Speaker 02

  I'll show you some magic tricks.

• 55:10Nilay Patel?

  Tomas, we're on.

• 55:11Speaker 02

  Show you some British magic tricks. They evolve plans of beer and coins and stuff like that.

• 55:16Nilay Patel?

  Uh, the number one British magic trick is talking with an American accent.

• 55:20Speaker 02

  I've done that one.

• 55:23Nilay Patel?

  Can't do it again. Can't tell you how that works.

• 55:25Speaker 02

  Don't do repeats.

• 55:25Nilay Patel?

  Uh, any else we need to talk about?

• 55:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, Bashbug is terrible and ruining the internet. There's a new Oculus and it's cool. Russell did some great reporting on the climate march, which you should go read.

• 55:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 55:37Speaker 01

  That's...

• 55:37Nilay Patel?

  Explain the Bashbug to me real fast.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  Uh, it's a bug that affects Bash, which is like the thing that a lot of stuff runs on or runs with. It's how you access, you know, the innards of servers and stuff.

• 55:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 55:50Speaker 01

  And there's a bug that's really hard to patch. And even if it weren't that hard to patch, it's like, it's such a ubiquitous thing and such old stuff everywhere.

• 55:57Nilay Patel?

  This is like Heartbleed.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  Right. And like, it's already being, people are scanning the internet for these bugs and then attacking them right now. There's a bug, there's a, there's an attack right now that some guy for shits and giggles is like opening up people's CD-ROM drives with it.

• 56:12Speaker 02

  Well, servers, right?

• 56:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, uh, it could be worse than Heartbleed, which is pretty frickin' bad.

• 56:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  So, anyway, we've got some great reporting from Russell Brandham up on it. You should take a look at it and be afraid for the future of the internet.

• 56:25Nilay Patel?

  Oh, also, uh,

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Everything is doomed.

• 56:26Nilay Patel?

  We have,

• 56:27Speaker 01

  Everything is terrible.

• 56:27Nilay Patel?

  Uh, yes, theverge.com.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:31Nilay Patel?

  Also, uh, we have a really awesome new science editor, Liz Lopato.

• 56:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 56:35Nilay Patel?

  Who's been writing really great things about science. And today she wrote a really great piece pointing out that like, the Emma Watson like threat of like nude photos is like just in a direct line to like nasty YouTube comments.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 56:48Nilay Patel?

  And like the internet's built on this culture of like fake threats. And then being like, I didn't mean it. I just said I was gonna come to your house with a knife. Uh, which I think everybody, if you care about being a civil, good, human being, you should go read that piece, because it's important.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  Go read it.

• 57:01Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  Is that it?

• 57:03Nilay Patel?

  That's it.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  You gotta wrap it up. You gotta, you gotta do the outro.

• 57:06Nilay Patel?

  The outro.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  You gotta say your name and that will be back and drop some Twitter handles.

• 57:10Nilay Patel?

  So, oh yeah. That's the most important part.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:14Nilay Patel?

  The most important part is-

• 57:14Speaker 01

  I've got to up my follower count. Tom Warren is way ahead of me.

• 57:17Nilay Patel?

  Oh, really?

• 57:18Speaker 01

  He's a monster on Twitter.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. So am I trolling.

• 57:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, you are commander of the Microsoft.

• 57:23Speaker 02

  Yep. Commander of the tribe.

• 57:27Nilay Patel?

  Okay, that has been the Vergecast for this week. We'll be back next week. 4:00, 4:30 in that zone on Thursdays, ET. It's central eastern time. You should leave a comment in the post if you want to get back to us. We love your feedback. You can tweet at us. I am Reckless, Dieter's Backlon, Tom Warren is TribeCommander.com. Just Tom Warren on Twitter. You can send us emails. You can do all kinds of stuff. Just get ahold of us. Just talk to us. You can go into Meta and complain about review objectivity at nauseam if you wish. That's cool. We all love that.

• 57:58Speaker 02

  Or bananas.

• 57:59Nilay Patel?

  Bananas. Yeah, you can make any video with fruit you want and then laugh at it because that's something you can do in America. And we're free here.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  And we are not fruit bias.

• 58:09Nilay Patel?

  We should have tried to bend an apple. I don't know what we were doing. Honestly, come on. And that's it. That's our show.

• 58:15Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 58:15Nilay Patel?

  We love having you here and we'll be back next week.

• 58:18Speaker 02

  Banana. Banana.