The Vergecast - Comcast, Time Warner, Google Fi, and Apple Watch

Episode Date: April 24, 2015

It may sound as if this episode of The Vergecast were recorded from within the aisles a Party City, but no; it's just our enthusiastic celebration of our sesquicentennial episode. Join us as we combine all the classic ingredients of a successful birthday blowout: failed corporate mergers, MVNOs, smartwatch apps, and silly cardboard hats. Thanks for listening for 150 episodes! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode of the Vergecast is brought to you by High Five. How many times have you had a meeting where you waste the first 15 minutes? It's usually because someone has had trouble joining a call, or you can't share your screen, or someone else could be heard, or they don't have the right pin code, or you work at the Verge, because that's our lives. Yeah. Nothing but problems.

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That is the sound of literally everybody unsubscribing in their podcast app. That's just fun fact about the verge. Today we discovered that you can blow out a kazoo. It's our birthday. It's the birthday. Introduce the show. Hello, and welcome to the Vergecast. This is the 150th episode of the Vergecast.

The Vergecast, birthday spectacular, which I would point out implies that we give birth to the show every week, as Sam has pointed out. But this is indeed our 150th episode. There's huge news going on in the world. Chris is wearing not one but two birthday hats. I'm trying to. I'm working on it. I would describe that as a bust situation.

But I'm here. I'm your host, Delia Patel. Next to me is... I am Deeter Bone. I'm Chris Sigler. And I am Sam Sheffer. In the hype desk. And my ring is glowing.

That shows us the sign behind you, though. It's pretty sweet. I didn't mean to say I'm your host. It was like a moment. We're all your host. The sign behind Sam, by the way, for the podcast listeners, because this is an audio show. Says 150 Verge casts.

Yeah. Big ups to Sarah for putting that together. I made a sign for us. I don't actually know how that's possible that it was made that quickly. Because you get letters, you could take letters and then you punch them together. I preferred it when I didn't know how it was done. Look, man. I just ruined all.

You ruined your childhood. Here's what I know about the verge and the staff of the verge. It's that everything in our lives that we think about and communicate with and like use to work together is like a high precision like machine requires teams of workers and factories and design. And the idea that something that looks like a consumer product, but is really just like sparkle letters that have been taped together. It's like blows our mind.

You're like a human made that. Yeah. Custom. A one-off. I didn't know that still happened. Limited edition. One of one. Bespoke.

Bespoke. Our bespoke sparkle sign. So anyway, this is the Verge cast where we talk about the Verge and a bunch of stuff. Stuff. And Sam hype checks us. Yeah. We are.

It's our birthday. I'm happy because it's our birthday. Yeah. I'm happy because I'm back. Last week I was on vacation. How did it go last week? It was great. It was the best.

I sat in that desk. It was the best Verge cast ever. Did we have a hype desk last week? I didn't listen to the show because I was on the coach. Yeah. He was in the hype desk. Yeah, I migrated. It was an empty hype desk.

We could not hype check. We were incapable of hype checking. And then I went back and all order was restored. Are we older than America? 150? That's a old number. No. Chris.

America is. Chris. We're in 2015. America celebrated its bicentennial in like 1976. It was close. 76. Yeah. Close.

You said 74? 1774? What happened in 1774? America was negative 2. Every day of 1774, someone was like, I can't wait for fucking America to show up. This is not American history podcast. 1775 was like the ultimate hype here. Hife levels were very dangerous.

George Washington kept on appearing in like British fashion magazines. America's coming just for a full year. They made a bunch of videos with British people. America's inevitable. My head is too big. And in 1776. America's here. We've made it.

What? I don't know. What is your British accent right now? I'm just like to point out that a Johnny Eye video about America's design would be a better one. That's all I'm saying. Like, you've made it of the finest materials. These mountains are the finest mountains in the world. All right, I'll stop.

Wow. What? That's how he talks. I'm just waiting for my chance to segue, but I don't think you want me to. What are we going to segue to? We're going to segue to America. and how the FCC is apparently deciding it's time to do its job. Again, that's the second time my year.

Yeah, legit breaking news before the Vergecast started. Guys, I'm just going to defer to you. I mean, obviously, I have many thoughts on the podcast. Well, let me say what the news is. So the news is, I'm just like a taskmaster today. Dude, running, running it. That's her birthday. I do not like fun.

I'm going to start crying at this far. No, it's a big news, enormous news. Over the past week or so, there have been rumblings that the FCC will make... And the Department of Justice. But particularly the FCC will make Comcast take its merger proposal to buy Time Warner Cable in front of a judge and actually hold a hearing, which is basically then using procedure to shut it down. Take a long time, be very expensive, very complicated. They're like, we're going to make this not fun for you. Yeah.

And then today, basically, Comcast has been leaking. we're done with this. We're done trying to buy a time we're capable, which is over a year since they announced the deal. Yeah. So the rumor is that it's going to be official tomorrow. Comcast will announce it tomorrow. But, I mean, just talk about Echoes of 18T-T-Mobile.

Celebrate. Dancing in the streets. Yeah, look, I mean, the FCC is developing a pretty solid reputation for not liking mergers between communications giants, which I am okay with. There is still AT&T direct TV on the docket. That's going to happen.

That makes sense to me. I don't know why that one makes sense to me, but it makes sense to it. Can we go back in time and do the AOL Time Warner thing over again? Well, that, I mean, they just kind of mutually destroyed each other. Yeah, that's fair. Maybe we wanted this merger to go through if that would have been the result. Yeah. So what's crazy to me is how over the past week these rumblings that, like, it was coming.

I'm like, oh, yeah, they're going to go, okay, I'm sure they'll deal with it. I sort of didn't have the sense that them having to go to these meetings meant that like, oh, this is like really truly on the rocks. Yeah, they bailed a lot faster than AT&T did. AT&T kind of stuck it out for a while and finally they're like, all right, this is stupid, never mind. But Comcast, they were just like, it was a game of chicken. They just immediately. Right? They blinked like right away.

Well, I mean, but they, I think they've been blinking this whole time. Right? Like, the way I've seen it, this is a second huge. setback for Comcast. I mean, although through, so there's net neutrality. So that Comcast had two major things to accomplish this year, right?

In terms of like their policy goals and their business goals. They wanted to avoid Title II reclassification with all of their heart and soul. They still do. Yeah, they still might, depending on how the legal situation goes. Well, through their lobbying arm, they filed that lawsuit. They decisively lost that battle with the FCC.

And they wanted to buy Time Warner. and Time Warner cable, I should say, be more precise. And those things were just always mixed up. Right. And the one thing that they would always say about buying Tam Warner was, hey, we've already agreed to all these net neutrality provisions. Until 2018. Yeah, but we already agreed to them until because when we bought NBC, we agreed to play by these rules until 2018. Yeah.

And if you let us buy Time Warner, Time Warner will fall under the rules too. And then one big net neutrality cable provider. For a couple of years. But that argument was, that was their play. That was their argument on both sides of the fence. It was, you don't have to do net neutrality regulation because we're already playing by the rules and we want to buy Time Warner. And then almost everybody will fall under the rules. And with Time Warner it was, we won't be a huge terrible monopoly because we're going to play by these rules.

Right. And all of that, it just in the course of, what, two months has just completely fallen apart. Yeah. Yeah. So do you think that if they hadn't bought NBC that this would have gone through? you know I did you read any of the Brian Williams stuff this is like it's sort of so you know Brian yeah you got yeah you got to make this connection I will make this connection I think buying NBC for Comcast is one of those moves where it made so much sense on paper and in the end has just been

a series of disasters right so the the reason I bring up Brian Williams is there was a great article in Vanity Fair about sort of the fall of Brian Williams there's another really long feature elsewhere that I read I can't remember where it was but there's a great article in Vanity Fair about sort of the fall of Brian Williams there's another really long feature elsewhere as I read. I can't remember what was. But there are two that sort of tracked like what happened there. And all of them, the Vanity Fair one in particular, opens with, this is all Comcast's fault.

NBC was fine. Before Comcast showed up, they had like the number one evening show, the number one daytime show, the number one news broadcast, and now we're here and they had like let their anchor go on leave. Today is plummeting in the ratings. And it's all just Comcast not knowing how to run media, a media company.

Right. And I think that has been such a big painful distraction. and then they try to buy and so like you look at where Comcast is now and it's just by the way full disclosure Comcast Ventures owns a piece of Vox Media which is the company it pays us all but I think if you've been reading the verge

you know that has very little effect on our coverage of Comcast but there's a disclosure but if you just look at what like Comcast their job is to provide better faster internet service and better faster or cooler television service to people right and none of those

things have been like radically increasing because they've been trying to figure out NBC and they try to buy Time Warner. Yeah. And it's just like distractions abound for this company. And none of those things have paid off. Right. We joke about X1 all the time. Like Comcast has been advertising X1 for what three years now?

It basically doesn't exist. It's in a few markets. Yeah. Yeah. I waited at least 18 months for it in Chicago finally moved and it still wasn't there. Did I ever tell the story? I was talking to TV executive. So this is a thing.

And I don't do, if you're listening to this, like TV executives, are often very boastful. But a lot of smart TVs do automatic content recognition. It's called ACR. So they listen. So if you think, just think, this is one of the things where they developed the world's coolest hack. So if you are a smart TV vendor, you have no idea what's coming through H.TMI1.

Right. Like you don't know what's on the TV. You don't know what's on your screen. Right. And that's like terrible. And if you want to build stuff around it, you want to like put interactive scores next to watching the game or whatever. you have to figure out what the hell's on the screen.

So they built ACR technology. It's like all over the place. Every time you go to a TV conference where you're like talk to somebody about the future of TV, ACR comes up because it's the solution. And is this basically the same thing that like Yahoo did a while ago and a bunch of other apps do like where it just like listens to the show? Yeah, it's like super fancy Shazam. Yeah. But it's like built in all this firmware.

It's built in all these apps on your phone, whatever. Right. It's like listens to the TV. If you're actually on the panel, you can look at what's on the TV. Right. And figure it out. So all these smart TV vendors have a. That's just a thing that they do.

They're trying to figure out how to use it. There's license the problem, but they all have it. And one of the things that they look at is what cable box people use. Right? So they know. From the UI. From the UI. They see the cable box.

You say no, which is crazy. And no one will give it to me. I beg for it all the time. But so they know what cable box people are using. And they're like, X1 is laughable. Like it's, Compeast has this huge market. And like they've put out in absolute numbers, like a pretty okay number of them. But compared to their total.

percentage, it's like, right, right. And it's just one of those things where it's like, would you have been better off doing this other stuff? Like, yeah. Focusing on rolling out your platform, focusing on, you know, making a deal with Apple who's desperate to make a television. Or just, you know, don't buy NBC and then buy Time Motor Cable instead. That's like, I don't think they would have ever gotten to buy Timorkewarm. You don't think so? No. And I, I'm just saying like the, the freak out that, Not the, well, let's freak out. Like the, just people being dubious about it was, I think, in part, like, the bad aftertaste of them buying NBC.

Yeah. And sort of, like, not a lot of people want, nobody wanted them to do it. So I just, we just sort of accepted that it was happening and they, like, got it through because not enough people were paying attention. Well, I still think that if you compare those two mergers on balance, the NBC one was far worse and more devastating. And I still think to the state that the federal, the federal government. Celebrate.

The federal government got played in that whole arrangement. Yeah. For sure. But, yeah, I do think that they're very different kinds of deals. And I'm not sure that that ever would have gone through. But by the same token, I am surprised to see how hard the FCC is ultimately pushed against it. I didn't expect that. The FCC has showed up.

Yeah. Yeah. Like they won that neutrality and they're like, oh, we can do stuff. Yeah. I gotta say this hat situation is just extraordinarily. Chris is wearing not one but two birthday hats. Don't get the glow stick. And the glow stick is

not super glowing. I mean I'm wearing a glow stick too. Let's be honest. It's true. But the one birthday hat doesn't have elastic. It just has strings. And the strings are just in daintily framing your face. The fact that the second birthday hat with one of the strings and the little puffy thing on it is also covered in glitter and you are both

idiots for even touching it. Like getting anywhere near it. Oh, you have a glitter phobia? Just I hate I prefer to be gently dusted in glitter from time to time. Well, I'm like, you know, I'm a sparkly man. Some people pay money to be dusted in glitter. I don't know what that means.

True. Fact. No, look, the Comcast thing, we could talk about it forever for zero, right? It's just amazing that for us at The Verge and for our readers, we did so much in net neutrality, and Comcast was the enemy of the net neutrality battle. Yeah. And I think everybody hates Comcast. Like that in Compagnos, not as a company, but some people have it as company, but as a provider of a service that isn't very good.

You asked Brian Roberts point blank. What is it like to wake up in the morning knowing that you're the most hated company in America or something like that? He was like, I don't want it. I don't want to do that. This is almost a year ago now. It was last May at the Code Conference. Yeah. And he just didn't have a good answer.

His PR people still bring it up with me in Congress. It's like a year later. So what does this mean? Is this a win for consumers? obviously, right? What does it mean for normals that don't read The Verge? You know, I, hmm, that's a really good question. I think that's kind of Comcast's argument was like, well, you already hate Time Warner.

Why wouldn't you just want to hate us too? Yeah. Right. And there's not a lot of market overlap, which is one of their arguments. Right. It means that Time Warner is going to pull a T-Mobile and hire a crazy-ass CEO like John Lowe. Charter's going to buy them. They're going to merge with a smaller.

Yeah. What you're going to see is, look, Time Warner is, like, not a good business right now, right? Like, it's a, there's a reason they're trying to sell themselves off. So Time Warner cable will probably merge with another cable company of its size. A lot of people have thrown out, like, charter, which is owned by, I think, Liberty Community. Like, there's just all this stuff out there. There's these other mid-tier operators. And then you'll see another regional player, the size of a Comcast emerge.

And that will be fascinating. Right. So instead of one, basically nationwide monopoly, you'll have two sort of, sort of. of regional, gigantic monopolies. And that push and pull over, like, so here's one of the problems you have. If Comcast owns everything, if they own the cable market in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, that's what they were going to go to. Yeah.

Right? It was like 34 of the nation's 35 largest markets or something crazy like that. If you're then a company that isn't NBC, if you're ABC or whatever, and you want to put, and you get into a broadcast dispute with Comcast, you're out, you've lost, you have no leverage. Because they have distribution control. Right. Distribution over the entire country. Okay.

And they make the content, too. And they have NBC. Right. They are technically barred from like favoring NBC, but like, come on. You sure? I mean, that DC logo is now their logo. Yeah. So, right, and like this happens, right?

CBS fights with DirecTV and CBS goes off the air for a minute or by, right? This happens consistently. Broadcasters and networks, or broadcasters and cable networks are always fighting. So if they own the whole country, like now they have all the leverage. And so particularly in this moment as cable subscriptions are dropping where there had been a question about net neutrality,

having two big players in the country is better than having one monopoly. Yeah, and I think that we can connect this to this great piece that Ben just wrote about how like the breaking of the cable bundle and all these TV services, like especially HBO moving to internet only, is happening.

way faster than we all expected it to. And like, Comcast, it's never going to happen. Didn't think it would happen. Yeah, that's more for TV, right? Yeah. And I think that Comcast,

if Comcast had managed to make this thing happen and they'd managed to buy time order, they probably would have been able to slow that down. Right. Right. But like, not only is unbundling happening faster, but the FCC actually, like,

found its legs or arm. I don't know. What's the metaphor? Found its limbs. Lims? swords handguns the FCC found a handgun

yeah why not the FCC was in its grandfather's basement yeah Tom Wheeler with an AR 15 with that war pain on right

someone's gonna photoshop the FCC watched full metal jacket but but so the question is like are many like it is this one is fine is this the end

of like consumer friendly broad changes to like infrastructure policy yeah or is this is this the end or is like

more crazy change coming. I think I'm telling you every week on the Vergecast, I say this, Apple is going to just flip all of the desks everywhere. No. I mean, like, Apple doesn't want to be in the cable. I mean, you realize that these

rumors have been going, when I started at in Gadget in 2006, there were rumors that Apple was going to start a wireless service. What? I don't know what that was. But no, but they looked at it. But Apple, dude, Apple looked into it.

Iverge. Head check. Got that Iverge siren. Man. Can we all pause for a moment and apologize to our podcast producers who are going to have to deal with the levels on this audio? Their ears are bleeding right now. Can I say this? Well, we're going to talk about the watch later.

But the Apple Watch died, so not wearing a dead Moto 360? I don't know. She's a different dead watch? Why? I don't know. It's pretty cool. I mean, it looks a little bit like your normal, was it Nixon or something? I think that's why I grabbed it by accident.

Oh, you grabbed it by accident? Well, I don't know. I mean, it's different. Didn't you once say that your Nixon watch doesn't have a lot of battery in it anyway? That's what I like. That's your move. I like dark squares on my wrist or dark shapes. Yeah.

I do want to say one of the thing about the FCC. Don't we all? So, Minion Clyburn, the former interim. chair person. Right. And still the best name ever to Gracie, SEC. True. She was staying in an Upper West Side Hotel last night. How do you know this?

I'm going somewhere with this. Yeah. And there were police reports last night that a coyote was seen running around Manhattan. And the police couldn't catch this coyote. Yeah. Well, so Minion Clyburn tweeted this morning, I've like never seen a coyote in North Carolina wherever she's from, but I come to the Upper West Side of Manhattan and there's a coyote right outside my window.

Whoa. So she saw the coyote of Manhattan. It's pronounced coyote. No coyote. It's quiet. I think it depends on what part of the country you're from. I think it depends on what I'm from Texas. How much Friday night lights you've been watching.

So then how would they pronounce zygote? Zygote. Sam, really? Sam. Sam. Hype check whatever you just did I thought it was pretty clever Anyway continue Zygote

Okay let's move on What is wrong with you? There's nowhere to go From there no your kazoo privileges Have been taken away I have all of the kazzoos No 10 minute because you break So how come you got the best hat You got a crown because I'm his swag Oh he's got the party pirate

Yeah it's the Marty Gras beads too I will say this when Sarah was going to Buy us all the party stuff She asked me if I wanted party hats or pirate hats and I said whatever a party pirate and whatever, and that's what she gave sand. That's perfect.

I mean, that's party pirate. Yeah. Admiral Raftown. Admiral Raftown. It looks good. All right. Admiral Ravel Raftown. Play the, we got to make some money.

Ready? This episode of Vergecast is brought to you by Lyndid.com. The online learning platform with over 3,000 on-demand video courses to help you strengthen your business, technology, and creative skills. For a free 10-day trial, visit Linda.com slash Vergecast. That's L-Y-N-D-A-com. Slashcast. Linda.com is for problem solvers,

for the curious, for people who want to make things happen like this man over here, Deeter Bone. Maybe you want to master Excel, Deeter. I do. Maybe you want to learn some negotiation tactics. I need them. You want to build a website.

I would like to do that. Yeah. Do you want to boost your Photoshop skills? They're pretty poor right now. Can do it at linda.com. You can do it there. Some courses that are worth checking out. Sam, I've got some suggestions.

for you. Take off the hat. Excel 2001 for the Mac, managing and analyzing data. That's for you. Figure out some Snapchat graphs. I want you to do it. Building a note-taking app for iOS 8, Christopher. I'm on it. Learn how to build a complete iOS 8 app from scratch using the iOS 8 SDK and X code. I'll take that. And I, just so you know, will be programming the Internet of Things with iOS. I'll explore the Internet of Things. I'll discover how to program, quote, unquote, things such as wearable tech applying sensors and programmable hardware then i will control all of you you do you with a linda dot com membership you can watch and learn from thousands of top experts who are passionate about teaching you can stream thousands of video courses on demand you can learn them on

your own schedule course are structured so you can watch them start to finish or consume them in bite-sized pieces you can use course transcripts to follow along search for an answer just skip around in the video go crazy you want to learn iOS 8 out of order you can do it with linda com i do take notes as you go refer to them as later download tutorials to watch and go you can access everything on your IS or on your device where you are making a note-taking app just think about it. Yeah.

It's all happening all at the same time. You can create and share a playlist, of course, as you want to watch to customize your learning path. I will say this. Nothing bothers me more than a non-customized learning path. Your Linda.com membership will get you unlimited access

to training on hundreds of topics for one flat rate. Whether are you looking to be an industry expert, you're passionate about a hobby, or you just want to learn something new like Excel 2011. I want you to visit lynda.com slash the Vergecast

and sign up for a free day trial. That's L-Y-N-D-A.com slash Furchcast. Can I share a quick anecdote? Yeah. Is it about coyotes? Anecdoge horn. So I was sitting in my in my lovely home. I'm listening to you, Chris.

Is this about the Apple Watch? No, no, it's not. I was sitting in my lovely home last evening, just minding my own business. And then Mignon Cliverin showed up at the door. With a coyote. I looked outside the window and there was a coyote. Minion Clyburn riding a coyote. I don't know if you know this.

Every FCC commissioner gets a type of wild dog. No, it's like they're like they're like they're. They're wizards and those coyotes are there familiar. No, I'm just saying. It's like instead of an owl, they have a coyote. Yeah. The problem is they have a wolf. Pretty sure he's got a dingo.

A dingo. Is it dingo a type of dog? No, yeah. Does the dingo eat you, baby? I get it. I get what you're saying. Dingo with the thing with the reference to the other thing. Anyway, I just want to once again point out that Tom Wheeler has a hyena.

He is a hyena kind of guy. My name is my own business at home and I get a Periscope notification. Oh, God. And I pull it up and Sam says, hey guys, I'm going to check out this new potato restaurant. And he's on his skateboard. And he's like, sorry bikers, sorry bikers, yo. And I'm like, I know what potato restaurant he's talking about. What?

It's opening a block from my apartment. Whoa. So I get in my shoes and I run. I get in my shoes. Yeah, I get in my shoes. Who else says I get in my shoes? I hopped on a coyote. When you have hype shoes like I do, you get in them.

Wait, I thought you were only allowed to refer to them as kicks. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I just thought you get in your shoes. When you have hype shoes, you get in them, yes. I'm making this up as I go. Like, you're with you. I just, that's all right. I run, so I run in Sam's general direction, hoping that I can make a cameo in his periscope.

Oh, that's my dream. Every time Sam periscopes from somewhere in the city, I'm like, can I make it to his periscope before he stops? Yeah. And this was the first time where the answer was realistically, yes. So I'm running toward him. And just before I get to him, he stops periscoping. I stopped broadcasting. I was literally like, all right, but guys, bye.

And I drop my phone and up comes Chris. And I'm like, oh, man, here we go. Yeah. So I started the periscope. and then he described the potato medallions and the... Wait, let's look, let's, I want to, there's so many questions. Yeah. Okay, here's my first question.

How is this related to Google's wife or new cell network? Yeah, yeah. Second, second, this is a restaurant that serves only potatoes. This is a restaurant that my brother and a few friends opened up after two years of planning, and this was like the week they're opening. So I was like, yeah, I'm going to go. Do they have anything other than potatoes? They have, it is a potato based place.

You can get like mashed potatoes or tots or, you know, He just definitely didn't answer my question. Is there anything except potatoes? Yeah, you could get veggies on the meat, and then you could get, or you could get veggies and meat and then toppings and then sauces. And he described the fries as beef, and I asked him if you meant literally beef or figuratively beef. Well, you know, chicken fries are a thing. Yeah, yeah, this is true. And that's the name of the restaurant.

Burlapsack, NYC. It's on 34th and 3rd. And if you see. Is there an offer code? No, there's no offer code. But if you go, I mean, the food's good. If you go to Burlap Second Way C slash bird. No, but it's good.

It's cool. All right, right, right. All right, do they have good cell service there? Yes, I was paroscoping. I see where you going with this. I tried. Stam just knocked me down. Sorry, sorry, go.

What's the sound of a man being viciously knocked off a segue? Because that's what you just did to me. It's not that sound. Yeah, when you get knocked off a segue, it starts playing birthday horns at you. We're dangerously close to a Paul Blart segue here, so we need to move away from that. All I'm saying is we're about to Here's I think the biggest news of the week Yeah

Potentially the biggest news of the month Yeah Bigger than Comcast Yeah Comcast is whatever Comcast is like a balloon Slowly deflated That was right

Is that news? It was doomed from the start I mean like it was It was you saw it coming You know it's like a What's how you periscoping now No I'm just showing off my brand new Blue Steel and Lexus 6

Is slowly defat Deflating it's going Neer And that's the opposite The opposite noise. Okay. No, I will say Google. It's Google Fi. Google Fi. I wish it was Google Fi. But Fi makes sense because Wi-Fi. Yeah, I get it.

Yeah, but there's people that pronounce it Wi-Fi. Yeah. That's true. It is called Wi-Fi in Europe. Yeah. No, it's not. Yes, it is. You get done the Wi-Fi. Yeah, it's real. What was that? I mean, you're wearing a half that makes you look like a party pope. You're like doing a bad example. You love the Wii-Fi. I need the best one for the Wi-Fi. All right. Party Pope Sheffers.

Google Fi is a MVNO where you buy service directly from Google. What, dude? His holiness, Pope Ecstasy the Fifth. John is not having it

with us today. Trying to do the story. You know, you can, you can buy service for your phone, but only one phone directly from Google only works on the Nexus 6. It runs on both T-Mobile and Sprint together, whatever is better, faster, or cooler. Yeah, dynamically switches between them.

And it also runs on Wi-Fi, of course, and that sounds like kind of boring. But they will hook you up to a bunch of public Wi-Fi hotspots, and then the phone automatically does a secure VPN through the hotspot so you feel secure using Wi-Fi instead of LTE or whatever. 20 bucks a month, base cost for unlimited talk and text. and then it's $10 a gig for data.

And you can either buy a bunch of data per month. And if you don't use it, they refund it back to you. Or you can say screw it and you just pay $10 a gig pro rated as you use it. So that's what it costs if you go over what you're buying. If you just buy zero, that's just what it costs. So yeah, you're looking like $20 a month plus taxes and fees plus $10 per gig. theoretically, I mean, more than theoretically, it's cheaper than everybody else.

And it's more technically interesting because it should be able to switch between Sprint and T-Mobile. And while both networks on their own are pretty, want-want. Together, maybe they're great. Who knows? I mean, the T-Mobile fans are going to be super mad to me for describing it as W-W-W-W, but let's be

clear. Like, when T-Mobile's great, it's great, and when it's not, it's really not. Right. Right. But maybe that's where Wi-Fi kind of backfills you there. Or Sprint. Sure. Or Sprint. So, But yeah, you got to use that on a Nexus 6. And who knows, like, you got to ask for an invite.

Did you just get one of those? Yeah, I bought it so that I could jump on the network. How do I buy one? Go to store.orgle.com. They moved all of their devices to that address. I couldn't figure the tie to stray. So here's my, the whole Sprint T-Mobile thing for me is like, it's got to work. Right.

Like, it's not actually clear to me that. So it sounds like Google's moving your phone number up to the cloud, right? Yeah. And then it's like. voice on steroids in many ways. Right. And then it's connecting through whatever network it wants. Right. And what I don't understand was why this is so very technically different. Like, why they couldn't have done this with the Nexus phone on AT&T and Wi-Fi?

Why they... Like, I get the bridging. They needed to build a phone that could do all the bands to bridge Sprint and T-Mobile. Why can't they do this with Nexus phones on AT&T? They could. I don't see why not, except they want to have a MV&O. Right. And like, in order to have an MV&O, you've got to sign a, agree with. I'm really going to spend $649 on this thing.

Yeah. Someone has to own the phone number. So I got the blue one. I had the white one before. The blue one, like the back is pretty cool. Nice slate. Are you ordering what you live right now? I bought every Nexus on the verge cast and I will continue to do so.

The rail is like, did you actually just buy it? You did it? I'm thinking about it. I can't decide whether I should have blue. It's blue is kind of, I mean, it's nicer than the other color. Yeah, that's the thing. So what Chris Welch did, he bought a white one, I think, but then he put a custom black cover on the back.

That's what cool. Okay. The end. Wait, is that different? There are two blue ones, right? No. Really? Maybe.

Maybe AT&T has a special one. Or Verizon, maybe. How do I change my... So I tested Republic Wireless last year. So I was talking about what that is. Yeah. So Republic is kind of a proto-GoogleFi in that it is a small company, started by some of the guys who were involved with...

Just like Google. Tiny company. Just like Google. Actually, some of the guys involved with it, co-founded Grand Central, which is the product that eventually became Google Voice. Yeah. So it's a pretty small...

Which is central to Google Fi. Right. So it's pretty insular community here. But anyway, what Republic does is they sell phones that have been burned with custom firmware that work on both Sprint and Wi-Fi. So it's similar to Google Fi except mine as T-Mobile.

Right. And what I found, what surprised me about using it, It was a little janking some ways that made it impractical for me personally as a daily driver. But what surprised me about it was how heavily I found that I ended up relying on Wi-Fi. Think about it. You're spending 95% of your time at home or at the office. And the remainder of your time is spent in an area that probably has a hotspot that you can get on to,

especially in a place like New York City. Right. So I think that Google FI—I think what people are going to find with FI is that it is surprisingly possible to use this. Because I'm at home and I'm at work, and I just need to use it in the middle. Right. I think what people are also going to find is it's print and T-Mobile's coverage maps are, like, pretty similar. Yeah. Right.

I mean, they both have the same priorities generally, which is cover the cities, cover the highways. Right. And so if you've, if you lived in a big city, like maybe this is going to be awesome for you. Yeah. But. I mean, we were talking about this will be yesterday. In all likelihood, Google would have preferred to work with at least one of 18-tier Verizon on this, but the big guys have far less incentive to be cooperative about a product. like Google 5 than

Google and Sprint too. And Ben wrote a great piece of why NV&O suddenly makes sense. Like five years ago, starting NBO was like a kiss of death. Right. Right. Like ESPN had one.

Yeah. Disney had one. Yeah, it's like ridiculous. And they all failed. And now what they're all about is because the phones have thankfully become more standardized.

They're about segmenting customers. So you see most NV&Os are targeted at lower income people. There's a bunch that are like targeted like teens. You know, like there are segments of the market where... Or for expats from other countries. There's like one for Chinese folks who live in the U.S. Yeah, yeah.

So that's all places where T-Mobile, it would be a huge distraction for them to like go and like build a pricing plan for this tiny little segment of the market. So they wholesale the spectrum and the access and they say some other company like go maximize this thing for us, which is an interesting idea. But then you see like Google's like, what if we try it like this? And T-Mobile is like, yeah, what if that is what makes us bigger and makes us more money? Yeah. The question I have is like this is necessarily small. By the way, my Google login is so confused that I can't buy a Nexus on the air right now. Oh, yeah.

You've got to, you've got to, like, open up a new Chrome window that is only tied to the actual Gmail address you want to use. It's the worst. I'm with the store. Like, it's impossible to switch the store. I hate it. I can't say it. So speaking of Google logins and complications, you have to use an at gmail.com address to sign up for FI. Can't use your custom domain.

Whatever, that's fine. But two, it seems like from all, like, their how, twos and FAQs and everything else, that signing up for Google Fi is one of the same as getting a Google Voice number. Because they say, you can use it anywhere and you can use it on your laptop or on a tablet or whatever. And it works with Hangouts really well. It seems pretty obvious that a Google Fi number is basically just a Google Voice number.

And that's built into Hangouts. That works a little better. But that integration isn't as good as it could be, I don't think. and, you know, voice has a history of being, like, a huge pain from time to time. I mean, I still have mine. I would, like, I switched back away from it because it was, like, too unreliable. I would love to use it again, you know, if Hangouts were better at iOS. But, yeah, it looks like that's just it.

So, like, you, maybe there'll be another number that is, like, paired to your phone, but they're doing something magical on the back end with your hangouts numbers to let it work apparently across T-Mobile and Sprint maybe? I check Google Voice. I'm really sure. On. Google Fi. Yeah.

No, Google Voice. I mean voice. Oh, man. It's so confusing, right? It's like, do normals know what Google Voices? I'd give it a four. Yeah. It had so much promise, though.

I know. No, it's always been a mess. Okay. Is there a difference between Google Voice and then the calling inside gmail. com? Like, you know how you have the phone? You need to install that plugin? No, they're supposed to be the same.

Yeah. But they're not. Well, it depends on how much, how bought it in you order of Google Voice. Right. And then Hangouts also, that's like a whole other thing too. I would say this. This is particularly, like, we saw it with, we've seen it with Google and now we're seeing with Facebook where they try to make everything the same. Right.

The ecosystem was so overpowering. It was like to use one Google service, you had to like use all 50. Google Plus and Photos is the most infamous example of that, I think. Yeah. Google Plus and photos. But Google Plus is also there. It's there with Hangouts. Like, we were talking to the show like,

I think a couple weeks ago. Like, I really miss having a buddy list just sort of like on my screen. Yeah. And like hangouts just took that away from me. Yeah. Like now it's like in my Gmail. And like it's... So you can, you can do it in your Gmail.

You can do it on a Chromebook really well. Yeah, no, you can do. And I've got this like bad little plug in on my Mac. Oh, it's the worst on the Mac. It's garbage and it doesn't know a Google account I'm logged into. Yep. Like every single here, Google, if you're listening to me, it is my birthday. And I want this gift.

Verge cast birthday. It's not your birthday. Well, we're, aren't we? all, it's Dieter's birthday. My birthday. I'm turning 82. Weird, weird number of episodes. We could go listen to me now

on this, the day of our birth. Every product you make should have an account selector in it that works. Yep, that's it. You should fire everyone until you find the one person that can do that for every one of your products.

And they've been promising this since before the dawn of Google Plus. But they know that everyone has like 50 Gmail accounts. Yeah. I've got one just for like Kuka. Huka buying. I don't know. I don't buy hoopas.

Really? What? I was going to make another joke, but then I had to back out of that joke. Yeah. The last minute. And I made a hookah joke and said, I buy, look, I have a vape account. Neil have vapes at Gmail. com.

Diesel vape? Diesel vape. That's what it is. No, but it's a huge problem. So, like, everything in Google is, like, just wrapped up in the same thing. And Google Voice, I think, suffered the most for it. Yeah. Well, and this gets hooked into, like, hangouts video conferencing, too.

Like, just everything, you can never know what account you're logged into. You never like you'll like click on a thing And be like no you don't have permission to go to this thing But I do oh I got to switch accounts Oh blah so I have On my computer Question mark AUTH equals zero

AUTH equals one AUTH equals two Because I'm logged into multiple Google accounts in Chrome And if I want to actually go to a thing I've got to paste URL and then paste the off user thing To manually hack the URL To switch accounts

This is the world that I have to live in because you suck in accounts, Google. And can you imagine what it's like to be like... To work at Google? You know, it would be a mere mortal. Not a god of URLs like me. And this the day of our birth, I think we should consider our own finite mortality. Let's not.

Look, one day, this is all over and we'll be pasty and off strings to Google. You know, we wanted to have a show called Pro Tips with Deeter Bone. We still should. Yeah, we absolutely. But the problem is, it was like, Dieter, what tip would you give to the Snapchat users on ProTips by Deeter Bone? and he started just yelling URLs at the screen. Actually, my idea was, I can't believe you're not using this app with Dieterbone. Yeah.

Yeah. No, this tool. I can't believe you're not using this tool. What was the tool that I got really mad about? Oh, simple image. Simple image is a replacement. Here we go. On the Mac.

Ooh, Dieter's on a simple image train again. God damn it. Look, I find stuff that makes computers better, and I get excited about it. Wait, so you think it's, you think it's saying what, too? Yeah, what? But, yeah. Yeah. The whole time.

I'm pretty sure it's saying chew. John's going to leave. I don't know where he is right now, but you can see in the control room, there's just steam rising. When I blow the kids, do it away from the mic. I do it away from here. I've been, I've been off mic blow in since you were. What? All right.

Is there anything else to say about five? We've got to finish that. Oh, wait, wait. It's only one phone. This is a problem. I do have something very important. Actually, I have two things to say about five. I go for it.

Well, I have the second thing to say. Okay. My second thing to say is this plus they just announced, they like officially announced the, the Android wear improvements. Oh yeah. Right. And it's only on the urbane,

which isn't coming to the U.S. till later this year in the Google store. They want to even say how much it costs. This month. This month. Sorry, later this month. Might as well like next 30 days. Announce a price, guys.

Announce a date. Come on. The beautiful watch. Yeah, why don't they do that? Because, is there like a reason why they withhold that is? That's all your brain is great, right? I think it's beautiful.

Yeah. Crazy. Have you seen one in person? Yes. You showed it to me. No. I think you did. I did not.

I showed you a Gwatch R and you're like, oh, look. It's all right. I'm going to... No, but no, the thing I'm going to say is like, Google I.O. is coming up at the end of May. I'm like, what are they going to talk about? Let's a pause. Okay. So we can read this next.

We got a commercial message. And then I think we should do some watch talk and we should bring this to an end. Okay. Today's episode of the Vergecast was also brought to you by Tripcase. Tripcase has helped brilliant people take over 30 million trips last year by collecting their flight hotel and other trip items into a single app on your phone or tablet. You also get free flight notifications if you're delayed or your gate changes

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And seat maps, which actually are my favorite feature because I am a seat snob on planes. Ditto. Because I take the same flights over and over again. 19E on Delta going to San Francisco on the way back. Isn't E a middle seat? Uh, no, it's... Depends on the plane. It depends on the plane.

Um, but it's the one, there's like two seats. Yeah. And then there's the bulkhead door in front of you. So then there's, it's the seat with no seat in front of it, but the bulkhead doors sticks out. I will say that sometimes the door is not sealed well. So it's like a freezing cold foot situation. But if you have to get out, boom, you're right there. You're ready to go.

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Tripcase. And we're back. All right, we should do some watch talking. Watch talk. I think there's a lot of watch stuff to say. Yeah. So can I, we should talk about the iOS or the Androidware stuff. That's what they're going to do with I.

Well, no, it's just like every time Apple does anything to watch, Google, like, throws out some more wear news. Right. Like, that's kind of the state Google's in. And we're at the point with the Apple Watch. I should have written this today. I didn't have time. We are at the point in the gadget cycle with the Apple Watch,

which is both my favorite part, but as a guy who's had it for a couple weeks now, is like, I'm like pre-sad for people. Because we're at like the magical realism stage. Oh, right. Everybody has hopes and dreams and aspirations for what it's going to do. They're just layering on what this thing is.

And so like, you know, I was, in fact, flying home the other day and I noticed. And this is a thing that like, it doesn't happen like i've had android wear watches and i have a pebble and like they don't try to do as much they they have a lot of these features but they don't try to do as much right so with apple like you know like it just apps show up in the thing it's like oh now i've got passbook and i can like throw my boarding pass on my watch this will be cool right right and i can do i can beep it this way and i'm running and i realize i drag my bag with my left

hand which is where i wear my watch so okay that's a pro so i switched the bag hand and then I'm like I have to use the watch to open my boarding pass so like it's just easier just pull up my phone and like on passbook it like shows up on the iPhone yeah on the lock screen right and there's like a million ways to solve this problem but I tweeted because one of the things and you you you guys might think this is the dumbest thing in the world but for me it has been like the idea of having a computer on your wrist is really cool until you until it's just knocked home up for me every time that you have to use both of your hands to use the appell. Right.

It is like in a way that didn't happen with my pebble necessarily. In a way that. Because it wasn't as ambitious, right? Well, the pebble is just like a bunch of notifications. Right. And then they go. I mean, they've got the music controller and all the other stuff. But this is one thing that Androidware is actually trying to solve with their new firmware.

Right. And they're trying to do all this justice. But like also Androidware in the iterations that I have been using it doesn't do a whole lot. Right. Right, like, Androidware is like basically like a bunch of Google Now cards that like show up whenever. Yeah. Right. There's none of this app stuff that's happening.

I mean, it's there. They've got apps. They just up to now, up to this latest update that's not out yet. It's, they've been hard to get to and you had to install this app. It's kind of hack you to get to them really quickly and like nobody use the apps. It's not a focus of the product. Right. With the Apple Watch, like the stories are covering in the Apple Watch right now are all app launches.

Right. Just every day, it's like here's 50 more apps. Here's Trello. Here's Slack. Here's Zillow is my favorite one. So I tweet. like here's another thing with the abelage like you need two hands to open a boarding pass and like click it and like i got this flood of responses like one day you'll just tell syri to do it or one day there'll

be ibeacons in every airport in america it's like or you could just use one hand on your phone right like you're layering all of this expectation about where it's going to go onto the product exists right now so that's one and then yesterday i tweeted like why would you want zillow on your watch so if you don't know zillow is a real estate pricing yeah it's like it's a house search app Yeah. So you can buy a house. And a lot of people are like, oh, you just glance at your wrist while you're driving and look at the price of the house around you. Which, one.

That idea. Don't do that. Don't be that person. Two, it doesn't know. It doesn't know where you are. It doesn't know what house you're looking at. Yeah. Like, just at a basic level, it just doesn't know what you're looking at.

So you have to. And then it's like the watch for real is slow. It's like loading Zillow. I'm presuming that you're not the sort of person who load Zillow on your phone like every 10 minutes. So Zillow falls out of your phone memory. It's not running the background. So to open on the watch means you have to launch Zillow on your phone.

Yeah. And then, so that takes a minute. And then it has to send data to the watch. And then it has to pull your location, which I'm telling you right now, the number one thing that is going to kill people with the Apple Watch is how long it takes to figure out where you are.

Right. Because everything you wanted to do is kind of location dependent. Yeah. And it takes forever to figure out where you are. And it's just like, it's not going to do that. you yet five years from now it will almost certainly do that for me two one two to say like to make the bed of almost certainly right five five years from now this thing will be golden so i mean here's how

i see this dynamic um you know iPhone comes out and we're like oh wow this thing is really nice but we didn't know that it was going to change society and humanity forever right right uh and so now this thing is coming out we're like oh it's pretty nice but nobody everybody's like but what if it does the same thing and nobody's nobody can say for sure that it won't yeah but i mean like this doesn't feel this revolution i felt this during the review very keenly um and it says take it for what it's for what it's worth we didn't give it the high score in the world we gave it a seven and we agonized over that seven day at night but there is the pressure of um the last two times people of betty and sap well they've been totally wrong massively completely wrong.

Yeah. And that's the iPhone and particularly iPad. And I think people were so wrong about the iPad. Like so deep. Like you knew with the iPhone that all the people were like, ah, this is garbage. We're wrong. The first time you use an iPhone, you're like,

okay, like there's a ton of work to do here. But this fundamental interface idea is the right interface idea. But people weren't, oh, this is garbage with iPad. They were, I don't know what to do with this with iPad. And I'm still, I don't know. know what to do with this. No, I think that's coming around, but I think there was a lot of, this is folly, nobody wants this crap, it's just a big iPhone.

Yeah. And like, that was all wrong. Right, it's not folly. It's like, the iPad didn't become the iPhone, like, to be clear, it's a smaller business, it's a different kind of business. But tablets in general, like Apple created the market, like, it's not even just the iPad. People are like, tablets are garbage

and Apple's, like, wandering into a dead market. And now, it's like, everyone makes a tablet, and we're, as a collective, like, industry, and culture, figure out where they go. Yeah. And that's like cool.

And like everyone was wrong. Like you can go back and like all the big iPad people or all the big iPhone people, you can give them a Samsung Galaxy tab and be like, you were super wrong. Right. Right. Like you can give them a surface and you were super wrong. And so there is that pressure against like Apple has a trillion dollars in the bank. They're just going to, and they own a chip company.

And they like they can buy, Samsung, literally their biggest competitor, Samsung has to make a its own display company for Apple, right? Like, they have all of the leverage to make this real if they want to. And I'm sure that they will. But this, so there is that sense of like inevitability with the product, right? It's just, they're going to iterate and it's going to go fast. And I expect this first watch to basically be like the first iPad. The first iPad was like end of life immediately.

Right. They don't even support anymore. This iPad 2 is still sticking around. Yeah. Right? And they put out the product they really wanted to make sort of like a year. or later. I think that's this watch.

And it's like, I just, this moment in particular is the expectations people who love Apple have for what this thing will do are so out of whack with what it can actually do. I want to say something here. I think, I mean, I want to bring this back to Earth because we as humans are so not normal when it comes to talking about these things and the way they interact and the way we interact with them. I think the Apple Watch is going to just be a utility that is like an iOS companion for most humans. Like most moms and most like, you know, college kids are not thinking about this the way we are. I think they're going to buy it and they're going to expect to get

text messages and tweets on their watch and that's it. Like talking about how like, no, they're expecting to use the health stuff. Like, okay, and that works, right? Presumably the health stuff works. I just I look at this as a Gen 1 Apple product that's meant to be a companion utility for like the mothership which is your phone. No, honestly I think that's there's that Johnny I've interviewed yesterday where it's like this isn't compete with regular watches like you shouldn't even think about it that way. Right. But what's happening and this is where the disconnect is coming. What's happening is and this is like, you know, it's like the fashion piece of this. It's like right now Apple is like giving this thing to like Beyonce and Carl Lagerfeld.

And like, what's fascinating about that to me is none of them have the screen on. No one has ever photographed using the Apple Watch. Right. Carl Lagerfeld is still on a pairing screen. J.J. Abram. Carl Lagerfeld does not know how to use that watch, I promise. There's a great interview. It's from like five years ago, so it wasn't worth reposting, but Julia Rubin at Racks sent it to me after I tweet about the Lagerfeld thing.

She's like, this is a video where Carl Lagerfeld thinks he calls an iPad Facebook and says he compares it to a sculpture. What? He's like, Facebook is like a, uh, uh, it's like some sculptor. He's like, it's beautiful. It's beautiful to me. And I'm like, it's, you think it's, can I? It's like, you're like so rich. He's wearing this like vampire comic.

I mean, it's incredible. And then he's like, and then he keeps going. He's like, you know, I don't, I wouldn't buy any of this stuff. But people give them to me covered in white gold. It's like, it's an amazing video. And he's like, of course I know how to use it. I mean, my assistance, I just tell them to use it. It's like, in your mind, you think knowing.

how to use an iPad is telling one of your assistants. He has a chauffeur to use technology for him. That's incredible. But like that's the thing. Fashion is like fleeting. Like it will come and go. Yeah. And so like right now it's fashionable. But unless there's utility against it

where you have to have it with you all the time, it will just go away. It will stop being fashionable. Like by it's the nature of fashion. And all of the, all of our fashion editors who like work at Ract, we talk to them. They're like, yeah, it'll be cool. It'll be status symbol for a minute and then

it will like, I mean, that's why we put them in the review video. Because it's silly like, I'm not going to sit around talking about it. So we put fashion editors in it. And all they'm like, yeah, this will be, if it becomes a thing fashion people will adopt it. And if it doesn't, it'll just go away. And I think Apple has to prove that utility piece of it

because it's like $350, $400 for the sport model to put on your wrist and get text messages. Remember how much the first iPod was when it first came out? Yeah, but the first iPod First iPod offered a thing, like, if you wanted to live in that first iPod world, you were using, like, the creative Rio. Zen or whatever, yeah. If you wanted to live in the first iPod world, you had a Mac with Firewire.

Yeah. Right? That literally, those are the requirements to use that first. Yeah, it was a tiny product. It's pretty easy to live in Apple's world now, right? Because a lot of people have iPhones. No, but I'm saying, like, comparing it the launch strategy here to the first iPod. Like, the first iPod market was like,

too super tiny. The potential market here is like anybody with an iPhone 5 or above. Right. And they're like putting... By that. It's like Beyonce's wanting a thing. Right. Like, um, they're taking over fashion stores in Paris and in Milan, London, Tokyo. That's where you have people. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's just I, this is that moment. Like, I'm not knocking this moment. It's just the moment where people believe that it can do anything. Yeah, we're reaching peak hype right now. This is it. Like, tomorrow the world is going to be a different place. So I've been trying to think about. about like what the other products were because I love this moment and it occurred. So the Microsoft career.

Yeah. It was one where like it was just hopes and dreams. Yeah, I was all hopes and dreams. There was literally a concept video that was hopes and dreams. I remember I was in class. The Motorola Atrix HD. Do you remember this thing? Yeah, yeah.

Miriam freaked out. So the Atrix H. It was announced at CES. Was it the HD or just the Atrix? The regular. H.D. Yeah, that's what it. So Atrix 4G was like the first.

It had the laptop dock. Yeah. It ran a second operating system called. a web top. Yeah. With Firefox on it. With Firefox. Didn't even have Chrome. It had Firefox. So it was a Linux computer that ran Android on the side. You could put it in a laptop thing. You could plug it into TV.

At a fingerprint sensor. Had a fingerprint sensor. Wow. It did. This product, I remember that one is being like, Josh and I were both. Yeah. We are just like this is, I'm going to throw out my laptop. I'm just going to have this phone. I'm plugging it in different things. It was like a beautiful, and then you got it. And you're like, oh. This is garbage. It was garbage. Yeah.

The folio, the palm folio. It didn't quite reach the levels. The Palm Pre. The pre. The pre. Yeah. Before it lost, Yo-Jer.

Yeah. Before it lost, it was nuts. I mean, you're right. No, I'm just saying, like,

it's just, it's a unique moment. Yeah, you mean you about the pre is you about the Apple watch in a week. We'll just. Oh, snap.

I'm just saying it's a unique moment. Like, I'm not suggesting that the bubble needs to burst. I'm like, I'm only saying, like, enjoy this one. Yeah.

Because they don't come along very often. Right. And like this is, this is the moment when literally people think it can do anything. When they think Siri is like tapping on the wrist and like whispering in your ear that like you're near a house you should buy. Like it's like that's crazy. And glass. It's like when Glass had that video with the dude swinging his kid around and it was like all. Nobody was ever this excited about Glass.

No, no. There was a moment. It was when Billton first scooped it because you were like, holy crap. I'm going to wear this magical. eyewear that it's going to change the world. Yeah, okay. But even then, even then, even then Google was like, this is, it's glass, like, it was, there was that moment of like, that first Glass Explorer video, almost killed Dieter's laptop

with a glass of a while. Yeah, I'll just buy the new MacBook. Oh, so now it's okay to kill my laptop instead. But I don't, I don't wave this hand around as much. I don't know why I think that's so funny. Happy birthday, VirchGcast. No, I'm just saying that first class video, the one where the guy was on the, like...

It did really well on the website. It was hype. He met a friend. Oh, but they never showed the hardware. They just showed, like, the interface was... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the one I'm talking about. And, like, people, like, layered their hopes and dreams on it.

And I just... All I'm saying is, if you love technology, like, this is a moment to appreciate. But, like, man, I, like, I'm very curious to see what the next two weeks of, like, reviews and, like, you do. YouTube videos from like real users. I'm dying to hear from the normals. I really am because again, we think of these products so differently than normals do. Well, you also need to, there's one very important aspect of psychology, I think, that is

going to trap people to some degree, which is that when you're spending $350 to $1,000 on this watch, you force yourself to think that you like it, whether you actually... Yeah, that's true. Right? That is very true. Because accepting into your heart the fact that you made a thousand. a $1,000 mistake or $500 mistake is a very, very tough pill to swallow.

Or you just give the thing back. Can you return it? So you can return the regular ones, of course. Yeah, not the gold. The gold one, no, you can return the gold one, too, inside of 14 days. They take a microscope to it to make sure you haven't removed any gold.

Yeah, that's 100% true. Yeah. They take a microscope to it to make sure you have it. So there are people at Apple that they had a train. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Like, okay, you're going to be the gold watch inspected.

You're the microscope guy. Well, this entire watch selling process has involved a lot. of training at Apple. But I do want to mention one thing in particular with the gold model. I tweeted this the other day, and I believe it's absolutely true. The model that Carl Lagerfeld and Beyonce and a few other folks have, I think exists. I think it's viable. I don't think Apple wants to talk about it because it's $75,000 or something like that.

It's got gold links, but otherwise it's the same edition, gold watch. Exactly. But I think that if you're a multimillionaire and you talk to Apple and say, hey, I want to buy that, They'll be like, sure. I think they're giving this first set away. Oh, yeah. Oh, of course, sorry. So, like, Pharrell and Drake and Beyonce and Katie Perry.

None of those guys. I mean, Apple probably paid them. But like, you know, Drake's an Apple fan today, but tomorrow is going to be on Android. Yeah, no way. That's a Drake joke. Never mind. That was way above my head. Really?

Jake, never mind. Not telling him more Drake jokes. Okay. That's the end of our show. Sam, engage. Snapchat. We've been. Go, right?

We've killed Sam's fear. Snapchat. Yeah, you should follow us on Snapchat because we post there every day and there's good stuff. Also, the New York Times had a really good snap story. I'm really proud of Farhad and it built in for doing that. You should follow us on Snapchat. We are The Real Verge on Snapchat. And you should subscribe to our YouTube channel.

We are YouTube.com slash The Verge. And while you're at it, if you don't like us already on Facebook, you probably should because we post all of our news there and videos and we do lots of giveaways on Facebook. so if you like free stuff, go to Facebook.com slash verge, click the like button, and then click every single article that comes into your news feed. Back to you, Neelai. All right. So, that was very like, all right, Sam, thank you very much for that engagement session. All right, now that's our show.

Please go on iTunes, give us five stars. That's a thing we still want you to do. That's great. I would like you, this go give us five stars. And in the review, just tell us what your magical realism dream of the Apple Watch is. Or Android where? Or Andrew, whatever, wherever your heart takes you, or the pebble. Yeah.

Just tell me, tell me your watch fantasy. Yeah, like, why do you want a... Tell me your... Don't know a G-13 device. Give us the 5 stars. And then there's some garbage. But if you want to do some stuff, that'd be great. Also, check out our other show.

What's Tech with Chris Plant? It's great. Doing awesome. This show's, this week show is great. It's about Singularity. That's all at iTunes.com slash The Verge. Sam is Sam Sheffer. On Twitter. Dieter's Backlon.

I'm reckless. Chris is Z-power. Not a great Twitter lineup for us, but those are the ones. Follow us, please. Thanks to High 5.5. High 5.com slash verge. Request a free trial. Thanks, Tripcase. Tripcase.com slash Vergecast.

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Let's drink. It's party. Bye. Paul.