The Vergecast - Coterie of vapes

Episode Date: October 16, 2015

This week's Vergecast features Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, Chris Plante in the Skype seat, and Nicola Fumo in the Hype seat. They talk fashion and tech struggles, Pax, bro's gold iPhones, Metal Gear, Battlefront, this fall's video game releases, new iMacs, the new Harmony Universal Remote, and — well — weed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Error. Your car is about to crash. Hit the brakes. I don't know. Wouldn't that be wild if you were just like in your car and suddenly that's what you heard? Terrifying. I guess. Nothing showed up. What I want this show to be is a constant series of surprises and terrifying moments. I want to be for the listener, an emotional roller coaster.

Yeah. It seems like a good thing to get out of a podcast. And welcome to the Vergecast. Dieter is very pleased. Do you score a touchdown? I'm on an emotional rollercoaster. Oh, I see. Hello and welcome to the Vodcast.

Today, of course, is the day that we are experiencing reality. That day being October 15th. You are probably experiencing this reality at the later time. So let's just go on that journey together. I am Nilai Patel, sitting next to me as Deerbone. Hello. On the Skype, I got Chris Plant. Hello.

What's up that guy? I missed you. Yeah. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you for asking. I really, I really like it when people care for me. I'm actually asking Jeter, but.

Yeah, sorry. But then, yeah, in the hype seat. There it is. Your girl. She is. Fumo. It's me. It's me.

Nicola's here. It is me. Can you just say it me for the rest of it? No. Paper magazine claims they found the, the, the, original. I know. I read that yesterday.

Anyway, but Nicholas here. Actually, it was, was it a medium week in news? I feel like we wrote a lot of things. We did a lot of stuff. We had a big, great feature today on the site

about the internet in Cuba that you should all go read. Absolutely. A bunch of reviews. Dieter is in a massive review planning cycle. Yeah. But many of the reviews haven't hit yet. Yeah.

Like, there's one today. There's like two tomorrow. Next week is going to be exciting. The week after. also exciting. And it's all Windows laptops, which is a fascinating moment. Walt just reviewed a Windows laptops.

Walt reviewed one, Vlad reviewed one. Walt reviewed the Toshiba 4K12, which a terrible name. Morse name. And Vlad reviewed the LG Graham. Can I say something? Yeah. About the LG gram? LG acquired WebOS from Palm.

Yeah. But the last vestige of WebOS at Palm reorganized itself under GR. at AM. They called themselves Graham. Oh, my God. Butterfly logo. Oh, my God.

It's a cellful circle. Named a laptop after it. And guess what? It's bad laptop. And then Walt's Toshiba was bad too. Walt and I had this hilarious. You should listen to control until you could talk about it forever. But we had this hilarious conversation.

I was like editing this review. And I was like, the battery only lasts for four hours. Like, you can't tell people to buy it. And he's like, oh, you're right. Like, that's bad. So anyway, so Windows laptops. Tons of them coming at. We're all very excited at Windows 10,

but they still kind of just Windows laptops. Yeah. But I'm very excited for the surface. I mean, the XPS 15 looks great. The 13 looks like maybe a little bit better than last year, which was very good. And we're all pumped for the surface book. So there's hope on the horizon somewhere, out there.

We're in the zone. But like I'm saying, medium news. Like it's like the first wave of bad Windows laptops is beginning to crest. But then maybe there'll be like a big, wave of a good one, but we're not there yet. But then what else happened? There's Star Wars stuff going on.

A bunch of Star Wars stuff. We're expecting a trailer soon. Yeah. And Battlefront, the video game, which is why Chris Platt is here. Everybody's posting stuff from there, watching Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader get destroyed by crashing spaceships over and over again. Yeah. Hype check Star Wars.

People love it. It's not good. Seems great. Yeah. All right. Not your thing. Not your thing is basically what I'm getting out of that. But I do want to talk about something that is your thing. That's actually a terrible segue. Nicola wrote two. Well, you got one thing that's great and then Rack wrote another thing that we also link posted. Well, Nicola didn't write the other thing.

What was the other thing? The Metcala thing. But you sent it to me. No, but there's another one of, I have two items going up on the verge. I'm just waiting for the news to slow, apparently. Sure. I'm waiting for the bullshit to be over, so my work can go on the side. Yeah, I need yours to quiet. Well, I want to start with the Met Gala because that is really interesting. And one of the reasons we always love having Nicola on the show and, like, you know, putting your stuff on the site is this fashion tech crossover is a real theaters.

What are you wearing? A horrendously ugly watch. Actually, it's better than most smart watches, which isn't saying much. It's the Galaxy. I'm sorry, it's not a Galaxy, it's the Gear S2. It's Samsung's new smart watch. I mean, it's better than much. Which lets you rotate with the bezel to go through stuff.

You can't really see it too well from my sky. but it looks like you just walked out of a hospital. Yeah, it's about right. It's not bad. Okay, so it's MetGalley. You're going to need to start at the very beginning. Nobody knows what it is. Okay, so the MetGala is an annual fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art here in New York,

the Costume Institute, which is where they have like amazing archives of costume all through history. And every year there's this big fundraiser event that's like what they call like Bashions Oscars. It's like the biggest night, the biggest red carpet of the year for fashion, like blows out of, I mean, I can't think of anything we would even compare it to. It's huge. It's a huge night for fashion. So the theme this year is fashion and technology. And actually it has a lot, they went with like a Latin. I don't have my whole thing. Manisik machina. Yeah. Which is incredible. Wow. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's wild. But. Okay. Go ahead. I was saying, but there's like a, there's like a news component.

this. Apple's sponsoring it. Yes. Which is. I mean, that seems like I read that and I was like, of course. Like I don't know who else like would have. I mean, I know who would have maybe wanted to. Yeah, they're like, look, Samsung.

We're not doing this with you. Yeah. Sorry guys. But then Johnny Ive is on the board. Taylor Swift is on the board. She is. And that's like, this is like a thing. If you've been listening to this show for the past, I know, year,

The idea that Apple is sponsoring a fashion event because they're like pushing the watch and Taylor, like, it's all of our theme sort of like neatly wrapped together. Are they going to complain about Apple music at this gala? Because then it would be perfectly everything. And do they think Spotify sucks? Because that's basically all that we talk about on this show. I mean, Beyonce and Jay-Z were the last to arrive last time. And that would have like a title component to it. Is that the one where they fought in the elevator?

No. What part of the... That was here before. Last year was Beyonce's see-through sparkly dress because she's vegan now and has a great body. I mean, she's already had a great body, but she was just really like, no, it's really good now. Anna had a baby.

And I'm going to make a lot of music about my sex life. Yeah. Anyway, that's a different tangent. Fashion and technology. Fashion technology. Beyonce. Motherhood. But you said it to me and you're like, and we both started laughing, particularly because of the

racked headline was like sigh. Yeah. Because you guys are kind of over it. Like it hasn't worked out, right? Oh man. Where do we even start with this? That is the sigh. That's the sigh in the headline.

Circuit boards. Is that the deal? It's just that there's been like the last like five years or so, there's been this really unnatural relationship between fashion and technology. and we get on the fashion side this like weird push from the tech side that isn't right and you guys get this weird push from the fashion side that isn't right and no one is doing it right and that is why we here do this all the time because we're because it's time to I don't know it's something has to give how do we get it right you need to solve problems beautifully inside and outside that's getting it right don't make stuff and put a fashion like pattern and designer name on it, basically just like franchising or something, licensing. That doesn't solve anyone's problems. Right.

But fashion doesn't really solve any problems beyond... But there are things that these... There are things that these wearables and, like, different technology aspects, like, across apps, smart fabrics, like, there's so much crossover. But it's not, like, being communicated, right? and the consumer doesn't know that their life could be better in this way if it looked better or if it performed better because it was designed better, or in this other way if it has technological functions that they don't even know about.

Like both sides don't even know what they can get from each other yet. Oh, I see. What's your, do you have a, is it overthrow? What's your, like your, you're, you have a word that you use. What word? Every time you're like, it's overthrow, figurehead. Oh, Operation Figurehead. Yeah.

So Nicola, for the past year, you have some of the, I'm let you in a little Fumo gossip. Nicola for the past year has been running Operation Figurehead, which is her plan to take over first, I believe, the verge. And then box media and then, you know, the world, publishing in general. I just want to be, I just want to be more like Nilai and just be able to talk. Yeah, I don't do shit. I don't know.

I think you do like two things a year on the website. And then you just like are around. Like, and people, you kind of do what you tell them to do. I mean, and kind of is very generous. People begrudgingly sometimes do what I have suggested. Rarely do what I say. And sometimes people are mean to you online, but not that mean. So, like, it's fine.

They're not that mean. Medium mean. Yeah, they're mean in the way of it grows. How many death threats do you get? I don't get a lot of death threats. See? I mean, I get a lot of joking suggestions that I might wish to kill myself, like, at a future time. But they're not like threats.

They're more like, you know, like I think that your life would be improved if you chose to end it. And they're very polite, you know. Can't be too mad about them. Anyway, so Nicola has been running Operation Figurehead. And so she very seriously told me a couple weeks ago that this fashion tech crossover zone needs a figurehead. Oh, yeah. And she has decided to be this figurehead. Yeah, I know.

Wow, you just really opened it up for me. I'm doxing it, man. Yeah, here I am. ready for this. Wait, so there's that, and then you wrote another piece about Paxe vaporizers and how they are, and I actually didn't know this because I do all of my shopping online and don't smoke weed. So perfect combination of things, reasons I'm ignorant about this. But they are putting their like vapes in the jewel like E-Sig in like fashion stores and malls,

which is crazy to me. So last March, I guess it was, I got an invite from Pax. And I knew of it from like friends and stuff. Like I already knew what the product was for my personal life. Because I love weed. I wasn't like what is this press release? I'm going to delete it. But it was an invite to a party and they were having it at Odin, which is this like very

cool men's wear store downtown here in New York. And I was like, whoa, what? Like that's interesting. And I went to the party and it was like any other fashion party where there was like great bar, lots of good looking people, a DJ. It was like a regular fashion party. and they were engraving the vaporizers as well. And it was like, oh, cool.

It's just like this new lifestyle category, whatever. And then they started, like, started getting, like, more press releases from them. Like, now we're in this store. Now we're in this store. And, like, very strategic, like, cool stores, like, in cities where they don't compete with each other, like, spreading them out. And the more I started to, like, notice what they were doing. I was like, this is really interesting. And I wanted to, like, talk more about them.

So I spoke with their CMO about, like, what the plan was and, like, why they, why they were looking to fashion, why the fashion customers so good for them, this whole world of expanding lifestyle products and how the two feed each other really nicely. And it was cool. And people liked it.

So is that an example of fashion and technology working together. By the way, if you don't know what Pax is they make two things. I make the jewel, which is like a rectangular E-Sig. It looks like a USB drive. Which I will, I'm just going to docks you right now. Yeah.

Which I sit next to Deeter, you know, here at work. Yeah. And also every other day. We're just here all day waiting for the coach cast every day. And every now and again, I just will notice, Deaters just puffing away.

Tocke on a Zeece. By the way, I can get arrested for what just happened there. No, you can't. Okay. I'll protect you. All right. That's why I sit next to you

to protect you from the vape police. And then the packs that, I think, which is their main product, is basically like the IMAC of weed vapes. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And it's like cylindrical and aluminum.

The thing is that they're really, My friends called a weed computer. I'm going to tell this story. We were away. We were on a trip. And literally all the people would be like on the trip, you know, let me hit that computer because everyone calls it a weed computer. It's not a good story.

I just like the fact that all my friends are like, let me hit that computer. So the thing is that it's, yeah, it's beautiful. It looks really great. Like, if you put it next to your iPhone, the two look like they are related. Like, and that's part of the cell is that it's really good looking. And it's a space for like a lot. of the product, like, isn't good looking. And, like, e-sigs have this, like, totally, like, gross reputation, a little black stick

with a blue thing. And, like, if you're walking on the street and you see something with an E-Sig, it's, like, the worst thing to see. It's funny. It's like a Google Glass person. Like, you can't even see it anymore. But they're, like, equivalently bad things to see. You're just, like, oh.

So, like, are, is the fashion, like, they're putting in these stores, and, like, they're trying to get into the fashion. Are they actually being accepted, or is it? like, oh, yeah, well, we'll take your money and let you, like, pretend that you're with us, but really you're not with us. I think it's crazy that you can walk into a suburban mall and go into, like, one of those, like, rustic wooden, what, what's the name of the store? It has, like, the rustic wooden tables.

What's that, what's that, Chris? Anthropology? No. That's really good, though. That would be awesome. That was really good. It's chilling with my mom. You walk into a mall and you go to the store with the rustic wooden table.

Is it anthropology? Yes. Basically. But, like, it's, it's for smoking weed. Yeah. It's kind of amazing. Well, the thing is, like, they can't say, you can put herbal matter in it. Like, that's how they can sell it in non-legalized states.

You can put whatever the fuck herbal matter. But whose mom in 2015 is dumb enough to be like... Can you not put tobacco in it? You can. You could. And when you go to the parties, like, I've been to one of their parties and they're like, oh, it's for tobacco. I'm like, really?

And then I can open it and, like, smelled like weed. And I was like, what kind of wacky tobacco are you? It was like one of those moments. Like, anyway. Do you really say wacky tobacco? I didn't. I just looked at them with discipline. appointment in my eyes.

Okay. Because they had lied to me again. Yeah. And I wish they would get better grades. Yeah. Anyway. But are they doing it right? Like that's the sort of thing where it's like, you couldn't just sell bongs in anthropology,

right? But you can, this thing looks high tech. It democratizes this like subculture and now everybody can just like use it. Yeah. And it's been out for like three years. And I definitely know like of my friends who have them. Like it's definitely like they treat it with like a little like sense of pride. Like they're very like happy to like have it.

And like it's very like there's very like there's. definitely that sense of like they're excited to like pull it out and like use it and show it off you know what I mean like gained that amount of like it's like your iPhone like this I have the cool sexy version of this product and it is this thing and I'm here with it and because you can use it it like in public easily like it's I don't know yes because it's small and because it gets you stone as hell yeah like that's why they like it and that yeah but like it's not like the boxy ones that are like big and weird and have like a tube coming out. How many vapes have disappointed you, Nicola?

We're going to make you start reviewing vapes on the verge, like really hardcore crazy one. I think I might have told the story on the show before, but when we went to interview Bill Gates in February, he was totally just stoned out of his mind. He was like, check out my wee computer. That's what I've been working. So we're coming back. And it's legal there, right? So the video crew that I was with was like, we got to go to one of these, like, super high-end stories.

We just have to check it out. go. It's basically an Apple store. Yeah. Wait, which one did you go? I don't remember. Like, I don't smoke weed. So to me, she went with her friend. I, yeah. It belongs to my friends.

It's not mine, I swear. But anyway, so we go and it's like basically an Apple store. Like same vibe, same like very clean design, you know, like dim lighting. It's sort of like this mood. That's what they wanted. But none of the products in the store were designed the same way. It was like, here's an elephant. bong. Like here's a giant glass pipe that looks like a pirate. Like it was all this wrong stuff.

Yeah. And it's like this is like these are the products where they're catching up to an aesthetic. They're bringing it out of a subculture and into this like modern tech aesthetic. But I don't know if that's fashionable or just not as shitty. Right? And that's not right. It's a little bit of both, right? Because I think the appeal of PACs is not just that it's in fashionable stores. It's that you can not have to go into a head shop. Right. I mean, it's like, it's romance novels versus porn, right? Like, it's this thing that there's, it's destigmatized to the point that it can exist in a grocery store and nobody blinks an eye. And you also don't have to be embarrassed when you go in to buy it. I think, I think that's why Pax is blown up is, there's no shame in buying a Pax.

Well, I think buying an elephant that you blow, like, smoke out of its ass. I'm gritty because you just, you like, really put it perfectly. That's what it is. It's putting, it's putting it in a different. It's selling it next to like common project sneakers and like APC jeans as opposed to next to like I don't even know Whatever is in like a gross head shop with like a weird dude. Yeah, you definitely wouldn't even ever been in one I also think your iPhone comparison was really apt because from things I've heard from It works better than anything else. So not only is it aesthetically pleasing, but it's also

One of the best options and when you can have that. Also it's really expensive. Yeah, it's like 300 bucks, right? Yeah, But it can be both pleasing to the eye and be very well designed and be better than most products. I think that's like why Pax is just dominated because it hits that. Yeah, it's also the kind of product like a phone where you just buy one of them. You don't need like a coterie of vapes. Like you just want one good one. And yet, I know people who have a coterie of vets just like Deter has like 12 different phones on itself. Yeah.

Okay. And Deter has like four different e-cigarettes. Actually, before Deter got the jewel, he was like constantly like tweaking and tinkering. Yeah, and swapping them out. Instead of like model railroads, Deeter was building vapes in his base. Well, no, if you're, like, the, the traditional tobacco vape thing, you go down, like, one of three paths. There's, like, the people that want to, like, just vape for four days straight, they carry on these giant batteries with, like, weird things attached to when they blow these giant plume clouds. And then there's, like, the disposable, horrible-looking e-sigs.

On those two ends of the spectrum, like, they, they just, you just look like a nerd. or aggressive or weird or whatever. And then in the middle, there's like... You can't look aggressive with the blue. Yeah. How do you look aggressive? But the big ones are aggressive.

They look like brass knuckles. Yeah. But in the middle, I wanted to find one in the middle, which was like, ignorable. And also didn't require me to think about it, but didn't look as dorky as the blues,

but would still last. And I would go through a bunch of them. And then like the, but Pax's version, is really good. The only problem with it is it's also really expensive because they use a little pod system instead of buying your own juice or whatever.

Anyway, you can hack that. There's like going to be printer ink refills at Staples for I mean, I definitely have taken it apart. Of course. But so here's the hard question. What's the hard question? Here's a hard question. Let's get it.

It feels like, and this is the fashion tech thing that I'm constantly thinking about. It feels like that is a piece of technology that got that didn't exist before it's new and now it is iterated to the point where like it's being accepted in a fashion circles because it finally looks and works well enough for the mainstream to get it yeah and it's not yet fashionable but it's not fashionable right uh actually no no no flip that flip that i think the reason it's accepted into those circles is because it's not yet technology i think because it's not identified as like

nerd-ass shit, it's something that can live in that store because it's a smoking device. It's not, it's not tech. Like, just like people don't think they play video games when they play on their smartphone, I think people who own a PACs who don't worry about tech most of the time probably wouldn't call themselves tech nerds who buy like brand new tech products. They probably think they just have a thing that helps them smoke. Yeah, exactly. And that's perfect.

So, okay, so that's the, like, I agree. That's, but that's, it's a better stated version of my foundation for the actual question, which is things like smartwatches and smart shirts and like all this other stuff is trying to add tech to existing things, right? And this thing that you're saying is both sides of the conversation don't actually know what the capabilities of the other side are. The PACs doesn't solve that problem because it's just new, right? The capability is you don't look like a huge stoner when you smoke weed. It solves the problem of how am I going to smoke wheat things. How am I going to smoke herbal matter?

How am I can smoke herbal matter? Oh, here's a device that does it, and I like that it looks nice. Right, but can like a smart watch ever get to that point? He just keeps pointing it. Well, because that one is just particular. You have, I mean, the smart watch needs to figure out what it's doing for you. Right. And then it can be designed well.

And there are some like that, we did a periscope the other day where they like showed me five of them. And I was like, like, there's some that aren't bad looking. Oh, which one did you like? It's circular. They have a leather strap and a runway watch. The motto. Oh, yeah,

was it, did it have a, never mind. It was either the motto or the Huawei. I watched this periscope. Yeah. It was really weird to watch

this periscope because it was happening in real life like four feet away from me. Right. But it was... I like the wall. God,

I thought that thing was hidden. Okay, anyway. I called Gordon Gecko watch. Well, maybe we're talking about different ones. I hate the rectangular faces. Yeah.

What watch is rectangular? It was crazy. I used to wear rectangular. That one is. This is still dead watch. Yeah. You know, since the last time on the show,

no one else has noticed that this watch is dead. How many times we're going to bring up longer filming on the show? Every day. I saw a cool person wearing an Apple Watch. He actually looked cool and it looked cool on him. And he was walking by my apartment in Bushwick. And he was wearing like all black, like kind of health goth sort of.

Yeah. And he had the all, like you have the black with the black strap. And I was like, wow, this guy looks futuristic and cool. Not like, wow, this guy looks like he bought into a new thing, which is what most people look like with Apple Watch? Do you think Apple has enough money that they just pay people to walk around Bushwood? That would be brilliant. Well, they're going to sponsor this MetGala thing.

This is what I mean. Like, Johnny Ives is going to show up to MetGal wearing his like $40,000 limited edition Rose Gold Apple Watch. And they're probably going to give him to everyone who goes to this party, right? Probably. Is that going to work? Are they going to break through finally or is it just Apple's here? I feel like it's still, whenever you see like a sponsored, like clearly sponsored Apple Watch,

it still looks like a person is wearing a sticker that they were paid to wear on their wrist. Like, I'm wearing the thing for the picture. Oh my God. Take the picture. That's what it looks like to me. Yeah. Sorry, I'm just typing.

Don't worry about me. Wait, one more question. I want to ask you about something. I want to ask you about the rose gold iPhone. And I want to ask for this specific reason. Sam Schaeffer was quoted in the Wall Street Journal today about his rose gold iPhone. What?

It's true. And he was like, it looks to me like a beautiful piece. of jewelry. No. Yeah, yeah. But it's pink. He stole Johnny Ives quote. I don't know, man.

Anyhow. So just give me like 30 seconds of rose gold iPhone, free association. It's a seven blush pink color. Yeah. I don't get a lot of gold tone from it. I don't like the regular gold and white iPhone anyway. Yeah. It seems like R&B in a way that I don't like.

Like, you don't mean like a white car in Miami. Yeah. And like aviator shades, like gradient aviator shades. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. That's the life I would, if I could live one life, it would be a white convertible Miami with the red interior and radiant aviator shades. I mean, I'm with you, but. I'm dismissively with you.

It's Baby Pink. Baby Pink is like kind of having this moment, though. And I think that if you want to look up Glossier, I'm sure your readers don't know what that is. But it's a makeup brand that started by. They're listeners. Just putting that out there. Glaciers? No, they're not readers.

Oh, oh, oh, the audience. I'm sorry. It's just... Sorry. Wow. No, but okay, so if we really want to unpack Baby Pink because we could... Get it. Get there.

Baby Pink is really having a moment more so I think than Rose Gold is. Rose Gold ship... Not that it's sail, but it's been sailing for a while. It's not like the freshest thing. It's on the ocean. But Baby Pink is kind of... It's what? Brose gold.

Wow. Because so many dudes are buying it. Okay. But Baby Pink is a... We have Nicol on the show just so she can dismiss us. God. I don't ever keep distracting me from my Baby Pink. Finish the Baby Pink Thigh.

Okay, so I think Baby Pink has kind of been like infiltrating a lot of visual language, especially in like fashion and beauty lately, which sounds obviously like girls in pink. trust me, it's different. And if you want to look at Glossier, they are like a prime example. They even have a hashtag Glossier pink because their pink on their branding is so consistent throughout

and it's such a like particular hue that it's become one of those things that like people who are familiar with the brand which is a lot and lot, lot, lot, lot, lot, lot, lot, lot of girls. Cool girls who spend money on the internet on beauty. My girls. They're my people. Kind of a valuable audience.

but they will completely recognize and know what that is immediately. So why do you think? And I think that this, I think that the rose gold shade is very, very, very similar to this baby pink color that's kind of spent like the last year or so, like, being very popular in the fashion space. Got it. I just think that it looks like the pink, the samony pink shirts that like bros wear. Yeah, it does. Yeah.

And they're like, oh, yeah, these are, this is a color that I wear. There's nothing about it that like, it's just that pink. It's frat boy pink to me. Yeah, I don't know how and why they called it Rose Gold. I just know what that thought. Trail off. Just let that's sit. Look, Johnny, I've even served.

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storage, network, and security on a cloud built to perform from SoftLayer. Well done. Thanks. Should I tell my two-factor authentication story? One time I used cloud architecture as an opener on Tinder. No. Yeah, and he wrote back like, ha-ha, what guy didn't write you back or something like that? Wait, what inspired you to write the words cloud architecture?

Because he had something about it in his, in his bio. So I was like, what's up? Wait, so you matched with a guy who had the words cloud architecture in his bio. As like part of, yeah, like stuff about him and what he does. Who puts that on Tinder? Who uses it in an opener? Yeah, I mean. I was like, this is going to be great.

I can sort of talk about this. And he was just like, shut it down. He was like, fuck you. I know that you are being ignored by someone. Like, it was awful. Wow. And then I was like, no, I got tech roots. I was like, you know the Verge?

And he didn't. Well, that. Screw that guy. Yeah, you can't Tinder, Matt. You should just change your entire Tinder profile to like, do you read The Verge? It is one of my, like, it is one of my interests on Facebook. There you go. that's everyone looks at those and uh but no on tinder it match if you have common interests yeah and

it's like it's like a fairly common common interest of mine with the verge the young men do they know that you're on the show i mean i it's never come up here's what i'm saying if you're in the new york city area start swiping until you find me gosh no my thresholds 27 to 33 oh my god oh my god all right let's uh let's transition right from nicholas tinder into star wars Heavy, heavy exhale. All right, Chris, walk us through what is going. Actually, there's a couple of things. There's a couple of reasons Chris on the show.

One, I just want to talk about Metal Gear for the next five hours. Oh, no. No, we're done talking about Metal Gear. I finally don't care about Metal Gear. I finally got... Never played Metal Gear. We're done talking about Metal Gear. Damn it.

It's so bad. It's so good. Oh, God. Chris, you're with me. The game, the entire plot in the, story of the game is total garbage, but the run around and do stuff, it's amazing. Yeah, I mean, everything about it is total garbage, except for, like, the invisible stuff that is happening underneath all the visuals and storytelling.

Like, you literally have to strip away all the artifice, and what's underneath is, like, brilliant design. Yeah. So brilliant that, like, there's been, like, all of the kind of social progress of games reviews over the last two years. And it was like, everyone, like, got together and like, hey, you know what? That was, like, really fun. But, like, let's not mention it in any of our criticism.

Let's just give this game chance. Yeah. And, yeah, that's what happened. It's a great game solely by absolutely awful storytelling and views of race and gender. I just played an episode of this game in which, shit you're not. The objective was to run around punching children. And I just didn't know what I was doing. I was like, why is this?

this is so much fun as I body slammed another child. A mission actually begins by like it says all the characters as if it's a TV show and it's like starring, snake, guest starring child soldiers. That was amazing. What? Like it even gets pop billing. Yeah. No, like it was incredible.

And like the plot and like they yell at you. They like, do you remember not to kill the children? Just body slam them. It's so strange. Are they like trying to kill you? Yeah. Oh, so they're like child soldiers. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. They are, you are in, do they even say which country you're in Africa? No. I think they get away with the vague like, pretend. No, you're in Afghanistan. No, it kind of shows you on a map like parts of Africa a lot of up, but it doesn't identify a country. Also, every, all of those start with like, starring, snake, guest starring, blah, blah, blah. And then it says featured mecca because, you know, Metal Gear is like a mech.

Like the whole, the engine of the game is like, it's all about developing. nuclear weapons that can walk around it's a mech thing but sometimes there isn't a featured mecca so they just list things like helicopters

and trucks and it's a really liberal definition of mech that's fucking helicopter man anyhow I don't want to talk about metal gear that

much except that I really do but there's so many games coming out this fall so I wanted Chris to talk about that with us but let's start let's rewind let's talk about Star Wars for a minute

so it's everywhere I cannot get away from Star Wars this week yeah so the battlefront game it to pull back the curtain on the verge dot com people can not get enough of this i write like one thing about star wars and then i get like

a hundred emails being like that was great but you know what what if you wrote more it's like nobody's done this nobody ever like asks me to write more about something they're usually like please shut up and go to hell um yeah it's it's really bizarre so should i just explain what the game is for people for five people who i guess don't know star wars battlefront is, I guess, a reboot of the Star Wars Battlefront series, which is itself an expansion of the Battlefront series. Which, if you think about what a modern first-person shooter is, you look down the sights your gun, and you shoot people on the face, and it's probably pretty violent and very, very fast-paced and strategic to the point of not being very accessible if you have not been playing for the last five years. battlefront is like the opposite of that it's kind of like i mean it's very big they're big open worlds that you can kind of fight them uh but it's a thing that i feel like anybody can pick up and play you

don't have to worry about learning how to do what's called iron sight aiming which is what you're doing call of duty uh you kind of just point and then you shoot and then things die um and then if when you die which will happen a lot you respond immediately so it's it's kind of perfect that it's paired with Star Wars, which itself is, I think, a very, I guess, welcoming brand and that everyone's force-fed it when they're a young age, so they have some connection to it, at least amongst a certain type of nerd. And yeah, they work really well together. And I was really skeptical of it. I played at E3, and it was without question the worst demo I played at E3. But that just goes to show how important things like tuning are in shooters. Like the difference

between, you know, a reload happening a half second too fast or too slower, just being able to aim at somebody in the right way can make or break these things. Okay, so we let Neil Ely talk about Metal Gear. You got to let me talk about Splatoon. What's more accessible and fun, Battlefront or Splatoon?

Splatoon is the most accessible shooter that maybe ever. It's designed. They made a shooter that like a child can play. A very young child. Yeah. I mean, What's more fun

Long term probably Probably battlefront I mean we don't know I haven't played the full game Splatoon was very wonderfully designed It's a Nintendo third person shooter There just wasn't a lot there Like it was very

Minimal amount of content And they've been adding more But don't talk about it in the past 10th Yeah but But Battlefront it just feels bigger And it feels like there are going to be more modes I wouldn't say there are necessarily more levels because that's kind of a problem that looks like for release.

They also expect you to spend $50 more on all the post-game content. But yeah, I am, it went from being something that I was incredibly skeptical of to after playing the beta

is something that I think is going to be just, it's going to demolish the holiday season. I think it is going to be the big game. Okay, so there's a ton of other games coming out for the holiday season. And what I want you to do for me right now is the PlayStation 4 is down to $350. Yes.

Convince me that I need to buy one. This is the easiest job in history. No, but like what game am I buying it for? Honestly, you don't. I would not convince you to buy it. Whoa. What about Uncharted? No.

Why would you buy a system to play an HD version of something you've already played? Because I've never played it. I've never played it. Uncharted. Here's what you should do. If you're looking at buying a video game system as a holiday. Um, if you don't have anything, sure. Get the PS4, especially if you are a person who isn't a shooter and you're going to play destiny.

If you're a big shooter person, it is the option in terms of it getting, uh, the DLC before everything else. Uh, I also personally tend to enjoy the system more. Uh, but this holiday, dang got anything. They have uncharted. And Microsoft, they're Microsoft has Tomb Raider, what's up? Well, they keep saying it's like, it's the best holiday ever. Yeah.

And it's like, yeah, I guess if you really like Microsoft games. Like they have Forza and Halo in a new Doom Raider and. Lots of people like those games. Yeah. All coming at the same time. Yeah, I, I'm excited to try the new Halo. I, whatever. I'm into that new stuff.

Give me things that entertain me that I haven't seen before. Nicola, what's the last video game you played? iPhone counts. Definitely counts. Tinder does not count. Tinder is a video game. Probably the Sims. I loved the Sims.

Like old school Sims. Well, SimCity early on, but then Sims 2, many extension packs purchased for various Christmases. But I played it kind of too, like I played it like until I was like 19. like a lot. And that I lived in New York and I didn't really know anyone here and I was like playing it at night

and I was like, no! I have to go live my fucking life. I can't play the Sims like anymore. I think we all have that moment. In my dorm room at night being like I'm 19 in New York City with a pillow on my lap and the Sims on top of that

and like I just have got to change something here and look at me now. Yeah. Operation figure. Chris, what's the game to get? This, this, there's, like, you and I have been talking, like, there's so many games coming out. What's the, yeah, I mean, the reality is almost everything is out now. I was looking through the thing.

I was like, oh, man, we have so much left. But the reality is a ton of stuff's already out. Destiny's out. Let's see. The rock band, guitar hero are almost out. Oh, I played that. Here. The new rock band?

Guitar hero. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They're all the same. They're all the same. They're all the same. They came here with polygons. There's no difference between rock band and guitar hero.

Oh. They're the same game. Yeah. Yes. They're the same game. Yes. The drums are better in Rockman. No.

It's the same game. Well, the old Rockman drums I had were definitely better than guitar drums. Okay. Because, you know, Guitar Hero was like, what are these drums? We don't know. We're doing more a guitar game in the rock, you know. That's how I always imagined it going down, like a bunch of like plastic guitar designers being like, oh, we got to make these. What are drums, man?

This game is about guitars. You don't think they were super idealistic in the guitar hero? factory? No. What's the game of the holiday season? We didn't, we didn't answer the question. No, did I tell you about the other rocksmith or something?

The moment that I saw the game that first introduced drums. No. So I was, this is probably in paragon, but whatever, those people, I don't think they have any money anymore. So there is this company that was like trying to compete with guitar here in rock band,

right? And they were going to, they were going to win the race to getting drums, but they knew like drums take a lot of space and a lot of people play these games in apartments. So we go into this meeting, and there's like a big wall. And you can see a guy's head just kind of peeking over it. And it's like, oh, man, there are drums behind that.

They're going to announce those drums. It's going to be a game-changing moment. And Phil Collins, what is it? I can feel like Colin on the edge of night comes on. And get to that drum solo and do-d-d-d-d-d-d-do-d-d-d-d-d-and the board falls over. And there are no drums. There is just like a thing on the ground. around and it's using like, I don't know, the Sega activator method of like IR blasters to tell

when you're swinging. And it's just a man hitting the air with drums rocking out. And it was the saddest moment. And there was a deep inhale where everyone gasped at how sad it was. And then everyone in the room at the same time uncontrollably laughed at him. It was like the saddest moment ever. Um, anyway, what should you get this season? I have, I have three things.

That's too many. Okay. I'm gonna give you, uh, uh, we can do one of the casual kind of throwaway thing. I'm gonna give you an indie game and a big game. All right. Yeah, that's good. Because I'm gonna assume that like people already know what fallout is.

Yeah, Nicola, what's Fallout. Oh, man. It's true. And Fallout Boy, we're releasing their first video game this season. They should. Why not? That'd be fun.

It would be just them, like, buying bars in Chicago and letting them fail. Sorry, that's a piece of my personal. story. I heard the follow-out voice talk was going down, down. We got to just end the show. No, Pete Wentz bought, they had Angels and Kings. I think they had one here. Oh, my God.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And he had, the Angels and King, Chicago was particularly good, bizarrely. And then it just, he just let it spiral into Doom. Damn. I had a birthday party there once. I thought to myself, what if Pete Wentz came to my birthday party. No, they had a really good, like, front.

area. Like, it was like one of those, like, long, narrow bars, but at the very front there was, like, this big circle couch in, like, a room. How old did you turn? Do you remember? roughly? 26. I know.

One of those numbers? 26, 27, some of that. I'm coming up on one of those. Yeah. Enjoy this. The last, I'm about turn 35. I'm dying. I'm, like, falling apart.

Every day. Don't even start with me. Every day for me right now. Oh, I'm going to 35. Why old are you, Dina? I'm like 52. That's the fun thing about not to gender it, but talking to men is you can just be like, how old are you? Because you're really not supposed to have women that.

Yeah. Sometimes you're just like. I like to ask every lady I meet how old they are. How old are you? Right from the jump. And what is your threshold? That's actually really important. And then it's weird as I take out my phone and I make a note of it.

It's so creepy. It's like that could be the creepiest thing that you could do men or. woman the first time you meet somebody ask how all they are and then write it down tanya comma waltese kama eighteen take a picture and like write the number in their face this is going to be a great stylist yeah oh that's so oh i think we all know what we're doing speak into your watch take a picture with you're like samson watch take a picture and you ask it to like put an age toy or okay google take a note This is great.

Every time we're on the Vergecast, over 45 minutes, we all just explode in laughter, which I hear doesn't always happen, but maybe, I don't know. No, it does. It's just we tell really creepy stories to each other. Pretty much.

But we got to get the games. We can't leave, can't leave the readers hanging, the audience. Well, I know my game of fall. How old are you? Snapchat game. Chris, any game and big game. Indie game is called Mushroom 11.

and it's not my favorite name. No. Not the witness? But it's made by New York designer and you are a green blob and you, like an iguana, you grow your tail back. You like chop it in half and wherever the biggest portion that is left is, it expands back to its like normal size. So you make your way across this kind of post-apocalyptic environment by cutting yourself in half over and over and over again and regrowing. It's kind of hard to describe, but it's like the most fun game. Do you ever play World of Goo?

Yeah, yeah. Millions of people played this game. It's like the new world of goo. I think on iPhone, it could be like the first huge, like, good iPhone game that isn't like a puzzle game or a card game in a long-ass time. Unfortunately, I think it's only out on Steam for the holiday. Boo. Uh, in the big, big budget game that people maybe don't know about is just cause three,

which has a potential to be super racist and insensitive, but what video game does it these days? Um, and it is you, you're like a dude who is throwing like, I guess stopping a government coup on some tropical island. Uh, but the bigger joy of it is you can pretty much do anything and you are white. wildly overpowered. So you can attach yourself with a grappling hook to a helicopter, fling up into the helicopter, throw the person out of it. It's like aim the helicopter at a building, jump out, like the helicopter brings down parts of the building, you fly down, land on top of a car, hijack the car, and then drive off the cliff and then parachute or like wing dive out of it. Like, it's very much the idea of, I guess,

GoPro sports inside of a Grand Theft Auto type of game. And I think it's had two other versions before this. I think this is the one where it kind of breaks away and gets kind of the credit alongside Grand Theft Auto that it's due. It's like if you took everything fun about Grand Theft Auto and for the most part stripped away all the story. Unfortunately, whatever story I have seen of it has me a little worried.

there are a lot of kind of funny accents and stuff that I'm hoping they actually casted locals and didn't do the thing where you like hire somebody who just happens to be available in Manhattan but yeah I think that will be a very popular surprise game and that comes out in December yeah this is your moment building a website

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Don't look at me that way Look I think we should all creepily whispered Squarespace That should be the whole addery just 30 seconds of us doing Squarespace. Yeah. We have a Halloween episode upcoming. We should do spooky ads for the Halloween episode. Ooh.

Ooh. We should make that noise. Look out behind you. We could keep talking about video games or Apple Watches or we could talk about IMAX or we could talk about Android marshmallow. We should talk about both the IMac and the Android. So, and the Android. You know, it runs the Google.

Actually, it does. Nicola, tell us about... Actually, that's a... It runs the Google. That's my whole angle. Oh, yeah, that's good. Oh, yeah, that's your angle. Finally, John Chen.

understand something. Right, right. Nicholas, I'll just about the IMA. I don't know. What happened? They update the IMAQ. Okay.

There's a big one, which is 27 inches, and it has a wider color gamut, shows more colors. I think I'm going to finally buy that one. My I'm at an economic stock. And then the little one's cheaper and has a really high-risk screen.

It has a 4-K screen. $1,500? Yeah, but at $1,500, you should not buy the $21.5 for the $1,500, because it comes with a, I think it's a $5,400 spinning platter hard drive. What?

No. Brutal. You do not want that at all. Like, do whatever you have to spend to get up to whatever the base fusion drive is. Yeah. Which, do you know what a fusion drive is? Do you care? Are you interested?

Tell me. Why not? Yeah. Learn something. So you know how your computer's faster because it has a SSD, a solid state drive? It doesn't have a hard drive that like spins around and makes noise. Okay. Yeah.

There's no more noises. Right. So you can. I can't tell who's patronizing who in this conversation. You can take a hard drive and make it half spinny, noisy and half like solid. and then you get both. Yeah. For why?

So that you get the speed of the SSD. The speed of the non-spinny. And you get the storage and the cheapness of the spinning. So you get more storage for less money. Seriously, historians for years were going to be trying to figure out who's trolling who is. All right. The three of us, though, is really like all different kinds of. Sorry, Chris.

Well, I don't know where you're from. No, no, no, no, because we're one. We're all passive-aggressive Midwesterners with our own specific version of that. And I don't know where you're from, Chris. Maybe you're probably not from the Midwest. Yeah. Oh, no. I mean, you're nice, though.

Maybe you are. Wow. He's from a city that has a really bad baseball team, is my understanding. Well, this is going to win. It's the year of the royals. Alex Rios is still awful. Don't tell him that. I'm not going to be.

But that's why the, like, who is trolling? Who works so well? Because it's just like Minnesota versus Wisconsin. just like, are you scotny? Yeah. Oh, God. Nicholas' parents

know my parents, I think. My, Nely's grandma, no, Nelai's mom was my grandma's doctor. Yeah, it's like old crazy shit. If you want a job at Box Media, make sure my parents care for your parents.

Yeah. Wow. For something. That's it. That's the nepotism I practice. My grandma watched the Apple Watch video and she saw your name and she was like,

I used to have a doctor with that name. Like, as if you don't have the mom. common last name. And then we pieced it all together. Yeah, that's amazing. Sorry. Sorry, Minnesota.

Anyhow. So, 27, I'm finally going to buy it. But the real story is they redesigned. By the way, my mom is calling me right now. Oh, my God. That's what's happening. Is she watching live? No, I hope not.

Okay. Mom, the whole part about weed, nothing to do with me. Somebody else. Someone else smoke the computer. Squarespace. Squarespace. My mom is calling me to get help with their script. Actually,

so the, wait, can I tell, can I tell a parents in technology story? Yes. I'll be real quick. So it happened here. So,

you know, there's nothing more embarrassing than like when your parents call you and you have to walk them through, like, clicking. I can think of many more embarrassing things. Well, no, but there's like few phone things

that are more embarrassing because you know, you kind of get mildly irritated but you don't want to yell at your parents for, you know what I mean? You know, this tone? I just had this. This parent computer tone

that you have, which is like, oh, There's actually really funny Amy Schumer. That's why the Apple Genius Bar exists. Anyway, there's a really, yes, but not for this. Okay. So there's actually a super funny Amy Schumer's discuss about it.

But anyhow, so then it calls me, and he is trying to upload. He wrote a letter of recommendation for, like, someone to go to med school. And he's like, I can't upload this file. And I was like, what format is it in? He's like, I don't know. And I was like, read the box. It tells me the letters. And he's like, it accepts TXT and DOC and blah.

lot. And I was like, oh, I know it's happening. You use, there's a super old version of Word for Mac on your computer, and I bet it doesn't accept that version of Word from Mac. So like, we walk through this whole lengthy, click on this thing, make this happen, what's happening? I don't know what I'm doing. Am I holding the mouse upside down? Parent computer conversation. We export the thing as a PDF, upload the thing. It's done. I'm like, great. I got to go back to work. My dad's like, wait, where did it go? Oh, no. It was just like, I know. I literally did not know how to do. answer this question. Like it's such a conceptually... The cloud. Yeah, it's like I don't... Let's start at the start.

There is the internet. There's a collection of service. It was just like with this mode. Anyhow, Macintoshes. What's important about them is the keyboard. Keyboard? Keyboard? And mouse. Well, there's the keyboard, the mouse, and the track pad. So here's what's new. The key, the, they're all wireless and they all don't use double-a batteries anymore. They're rechargeable. And they recharge with a lightning cable, same thing your iPhone does. The other thing to know about them is they're freaking expensive. The trackpad's $130.00. And the keyboard is

$100. And I don't know what the mouse is. Right. But they're great. But the mouse is like not really changed. It's got like new plastic on the bottom so it glides class of table. Just more silkily. And they took out the double-in batteries, right? Yeah, they took out the double-A batteries. And you can't use the mouse when it's

plugged in because the light and the cable goes like smack in the bottom of it, and so you can't actually use it. But the keyboard is really shallow. I like it. I hate, even the keyboard of the MacBook air now, I hate it. It's way too, like, mushy. I got so used to the new MacBook where, like, the key travel was basically not... Yeah, because the other one's a review unit. I was only doing it for Al Capiton. Oh.

I'm going to come back to this guy. Yeah. But you were so in love with it. I still am, but there's no way to plug it into anything. So, yeah. Anyway, I bought the keyboard and the trackpad. I spent the 200. $150 for to replace a thing that I already have and didn't need to buy. Yeah. Fashion. Fashion. Fashion.

Yeah. Well, exactly right. Desk fashion. I just don't know about force touch on an external track pad. It seems like a strange concept to me. Whatever. I don't use any of the force touch features. Yeah.

I don't either. I don't use it on my phone. I haven't used it. Really? I haven't 3D touched this phone and God knows how long. I haven't even tried that yet. Yeah. Do you have the success?

No. She just bought a six. Remember she was on that? Oh, that's right. Yeah. You can't do the 3D touch then. I know, I know, but like, I haven't had, like, someone else's in my hand to try it. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Just try it. After the show. Okay. How often do you use 3D touch? Be honest. Never. That's what I'm saying.

Never. What is it supposed to do? Like, what are you supposed to get out of it? If you see something linked and you're like, oh, I want to know what that is, but I don't want to switch apps. You can push on it really, like, kind of harder, and then you'll see a little preview pop up. So you'll see a preview of a map or a preview of the web page or other stuff. The other thing that it's used for is on the home screen, you can push really hard on an icon, and it'll give you shortcuts into different parts of the app.

So on Instagram, you can, like, push on it really hard and jump straight to selfie. Yeah. Or on, I don't know, what else can you do? No. So far, you can jump to a bookmark on the phone. You can, like, or the messaging app, you can jump to messaging somebody directly instead of having to, like, open the app, find the person, blah, blah, blah, blah. That sounds nice. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it's just like, it's got to. There's just no good reason. You got to do more with it. You know, like the app developed, like, I use it most, it's funny. I use it most in Safari because mobile Safari has this irritating propensity to not do anything when you try to click on the link. So you can squeeze the link and be like, and then it like pops open.

That's it. Do you want to know the biggest change to this phone? This is going to be my review. Do you have one? We can transcribe this and put this on the site. I don't mind. Chris Plant, Apple Review. When it rings and it's quiet, it feels like it's like it's like it's like.

electrocuting you because the new buzzer is like that little zap feeling have you have you felt this if you put it in your pocket and it feels i i kind of like it but it definitely feels like it's electrocuting you it feels like a little taser i i can just actually feel it now which is good it's super weird i think y'all are crazy if you you think it just feels like normal buzzy no it definitely feels better i think it feels unsettling it feels alien somebody snuck something in my phone. I don't think you have enough to do in Texas. Yeah.

I'm going to talk about the Harmony Elite Remote. Oh, that's a piece of garbage. I just bought one. You're crazy. The new one? I spent $350. I'm thinking about buying one. You don't like it.

Zigo loves it. I bought it and it is fantastic. Go get it. It is so good. No, it's not. I'm waiting to find out how to work with the new Apple TV before I buy it. Here's the awesome thing. With our universal.

Oh, you're deep in the gadget hole of it. No, I know, but we've been over this before when I've been here. We've been talking about TV and if TV can be better and easier to use. We're just talking about the remote control now. I know. Why would you buy a remote that didn't come with your TV? Oh, so you can control everything. It has totally trolled you again.

I said, get a little. Can you think where you just troll people into like mansplaining? That can be my column, mansplained to me. Oh, my God. No. No, I don't think that's not. No, I don't know. No, I don't know.

No, my column's called you're doing it wrong. Oh. And it's just pictures of fashionable tech items. It's just, it's just pictures of Swarovsky Samsung phones. Yeah. Take the crystals off. That's all.

No. Actually, I bet you hear what it was going to explain. No, I'm not going to because I can't tell if I was being trolled, but I'm sure I was. I'm asking.

I'm genuinely curious. Too late. Now you'll never know. Okay. No, you can control all of your crap instead of just the one thing. So you don't have to have 50 remotes.

You just have the one. And this one can control your smart light bulbs too. Yeah. Which is why Chris loves it. And because Chris Ziegler has an apartment in New York that he's illegally rewired to be smart. Fact. Yeah. Seems cool.

He actually, I remember. He can't sell his old condo in Chicago because he illegally rewired. He's like, I can't let another person live here. And then Chris Plant just bought a home in Austin and is now turning into the ultimate Texas homeowner and is constantly making it smarter with gadgets. Correct? Oh my gosh. So at night, my wife hates a remote control. I mean, we've had other Logitech controllers, and they're awful.

And I hate them, too. But, like, I feel bad because they usually just don't work. And then she has to, like, dig out for other remote controls. And she's like, why did you do this to me? I don't want any of your stupidly crap. I just want a TV and, like, a normal remote, which is understandable. But now, like, this one, you hit a button at, there's, like, daytime TV and nighttime TV. And if it's daytime TV, it changes the light colors to normal.

And it doesn't dim them. I thought it sets the nest to 79 degrees because that's daytime temperature. And then at nighttime, it dims everything, sets some blue, change the nest to 75 because that's nighttime temperature. And it sets it to the channel that we always start on, which is food channel because you know that diners driving some dives are going to start on 9-930. And that is, it's so stupid, but it's so wonderful that like everything, all these stupid little things I do, force of habit every night, like, reset the damn lights and, like, change the temperature. Wait, you were resetting the color temperature of your lights as a force of habit? I do.

Because, because, so I am. Checking the color temperature of your lights. I don't, no, I don't like reflections on the TV. And if we change the color temperature of the lights, it doesn't reflect. But she likes to have the lights on. So it's, like, compromise. That's what relationship serves. So here's what I'm going to say to you.

All of the thing, the functionality that you're describing is great. Right? And like macros are cool. The product. It's flawless. The product is garbage. You're crazy. It feels so good.

In the buzz, you're just mad because it has an IRA repeater. It has a child. It has installed IR blasters in my fucking home. Do you know what a breakdown that is for me? Why did you do that? I didn't even have to plug any of my IR blasters in. It just worked through the Wi-Fi. I don't know, man.

Whatever. I'm done. That hub is dumb. That's all I'm saying. And the iPhone app is garbage. You should get it and be happy that there's finally remote that. It should be legal from Logitechitech to make software. I have no reason to replace it right now.

Yeah, I'm switching it back to my... Anyway. Ew. It should be illegal. There should be a law. There should be a law that prevents Logite from writing software. Silverlight. What are the...

Do you have to update the Harmony... No, no, it's great. You download an app on your phone and you can't do it all in your phone. No, there's a web app for the one, too. It's not really... No, it's not the silver-right thing anymore. It's a proper HTML app. It's still a mess.

It's like a modern mess. It's so. All right. We should end this show. Chris, you're wrong. You can not agree that Theverge.com gave an eight out of something. Look, Ziegler's a Harmony fanboy. That's just where he lives. He's biased.

Says the man with a broken Apple Watch. Whatever. It's not broken. I just choose not to charge it as a statement about the futility of our modern technological lives. If you'd like to learn more about the futility of our modern technological lives, you should follow us on various social channels. We are Verge on Twitter. on Snapchat were The Real Verge.

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because Apple is a dominant, unstoppable force in podcasting. Find an algorithm and game it in our favor. Just anyone you want. There you go. Push like on Facebook. Retweet on the tweets. Yep.

I forgot what Twitter was called. Thought tweets. Yeah, retweet the tweets. Star the iTunes. What are some other algorithms you can game in our favor? I don't know. Just follow us in Snapchat. That's good.

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I am backlon. Nelai is reckless. Christopher Thomas Plant is at Plant with an E. Nicola is Nicola Fumo. Underscore. Nicole underscore Fumo. And we are all at Verge. And you can just use hashtag Operation Figurehead.

Yeah. It will. And all tweets directed at Nicola for the next week. Thanks. Yeah. Cool. Cool. Rock and roll.

Right. Bye.