The Vergecast - Diego is useless

Episode Date: September 19, 2014

Yes, finally: The Vergecast is really back, and there's a whole lot to talk about. This week, Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, and David Pierce get together to discuss their impressions of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Amazon's slew of new tablets, and Microsoft's purchase of Minecraft. Oh, and Dora the Explorer too. Download MP3 (31.5 MB) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello. How are you doing? Welcome to the Vergecast. That's usually the next line there. I don't know. I don't know. He was doing a thing. You got to, hello.

Welcome to the Vergecast. This is our show. It is a show about just a bunch of guys having a good time. I don't know. Is that what it's about? No. What is life about? It's a show about me having a small existential crisis once a week with good friends.

That sounds right. And technology and news. and pretty much I was arguing at the end of Breaking Bad, which I've discovered recently can just send us into a tailspin of disaster. And other ideas. In facts. Figures.

It's a lot of work for you. Figures. This is the Vergecast. Look at all this negotiation I have to do to get this beer up to my mouth. Yeah. Really bad. Here's what I'm saying about the Vergecast. It's back.

We've been gone for a long time. We did a hack week podcast. We threw together one last week. And now we're just back. It's just going to keep happening. We've got kind of a bit. a different set going on here. Based on...

The French Cafe said. It's very nice. It's a salon. We kind of looked at our numbers and how people were consuming the Vergecast. We realized most of you were downloading it on audio. So we're going to be focused on making a really great sort of like audio thing. Are we unattractive? No.

Is this... No, I have a theory about the internet. Do you? Here's a theory. This is the only one you have. No, I think, I believe the internet has radically changed in some of the internet. of media fact that's true don't even argue with me are we going to talk about Taylor swift right now that was about we can we can't admit it but if you think about how people used to consume information in

their lives it was they would wake up in the morning and like read a newspaper and then they would go to work and presumably be productive and then they would come up at night and like watch television right and if you just look I just that happened just keep going I feel like there was a lot of minesweeper in the middle of there yeah but like whatever but then what happened then the internet arrived And now everybody wakes up in the morning and plays with their phone and they get to work and read our website all day long. Which is true. Because our highest traffic is like at noon. Yeah.

And then they go home and like play games. And like all of the information is like we've moved it from like the beginning and end of the day to like the dead center of the day. And that is that is what to do with podcasting. Well, hear me out. I think people listen to podcasts on the way to work. Yep. They listen to podcasts at work while they're ignoring their jobs and then they listen to it on the way home from work. Yeah.

And those are all bad places. Oh, and when they're doing dishes. And apparently dishes. Yep. That's a big podcasting time. Whenever you are, whenever you should be doing something else, you should be listening to a podcast. I mean, that's definitely when I listen to podcasts. Like, I listen to one, basically one podcast a day in three chunks.

It's like when I'm getting ready in the morning, on my way to work and on my way home from work. So let me ask you this. You know, an hour and 10 minutes. Do you listen at regular speed or do you speed it up? See, I listen at regular speed. I try. I speed it up. I'll speed it up.

Yeah. It's actually pretty good. Like the, what is it? Pocket cast that I use is like it people don't sound crazy. I used to use an app that people made people just sound horrible. So you know that the Mark Romance podcast thing, like it speeds it up, but it also removes the silences. And so it sounds really natural. Apparently really neat.

That is neat. But yeah, we should we should just talk 1.5 speed just to troll the people that listen at I mean, I have friends who basically talk at 1.5 speed. Yeah. I feel like we all talk at 1.5 speed. Yeah, it's the... Everyone I know is like, please stop talking so fast. But I have so many facts and figures.

So anyway, the point of that digression was that we know most people are consuming us on audio. So we are going to figure out what to do the video. I think what we should do is we should let this be a podcast. And then when we want to make TV shows or video shows or whatever shows, we should make those differently. Which is a radical idea I know. let each media be true to itself, he proclaimed. Although, we're starting this audio-only format with a live show that's on camera. So we are fundamentally-revelling the lie behind all language.

No, this is like, yes, right. Right, everything is a symbol that means we're going to die. No, but if you want to watch us be goofballs together, you can stream to us live, and we will have the replays on live stream. Right. So if you want to hang out with us now, you can't. That's a good time. 4.30 p.m. Eastern on Thursdays.

Anyway, Virchcast is back. Those are some facts with the Vergecast. Tell me some figures about the Vergecast. There are three of them on it right now. There are three people in the Vergecast. It is very tall. It is 12 feet tall. Sure.

Very wide. It has a blue ox as a pet. Carries a big axe. Straight to Paul Bunyan. What? Deeters from Minnesota. He cannot. He always immediately references something Minnesota.

I mean, everything in Minnesota is either Prince or Paul Bunyan. And, like, Prince isn't very tall. So actually, funny story, same guy. Huge. Actually, no, Prince is very small. Prince is a tiny man. Yeah. Paul Bunyan, by the way. Is it like two princes stacked on top of each other with a trench coat is Paul Bunyan.

No one gives Paul Bunyan credit for being an excellent guitarist. Yeah. I mean, he's just, he's really good with an axe. All right, we're done. Shut it down. We tried. The first test is over. Shut it down.

We're never doing this again. Okay, let's talk about speaking of enormous things. things. Yeah. There's actually a lot of news to talk about this week. I'm holding a gigantic iPhone. You're holding... I have a less gigantic iPhone.

I don't have an iPhone. Do you want like a little iPhone? I'm taking this one out of the case. That's my 5S. Does this have a big crack in the middle? Is that a thing that's happening? Here's my plan with the 5S. I'm not going to switch it my SIM card until that phone explodes.

Because it's so close. You are on your way to that happening. Yeah, it is so close to being completely trashed. Anyway, so it. This was reviews week for us with the iPhones. iOS 8 reviews coming next week because there's so much to unpack there. Yeah, it was really like, and this, we kind of thought this was going to be the case, and it totally proved out that, like, so much of iOS 8 didn't get unlocked until all these developers started updating their apps.

And, like, there's all kinds of cool stuff going on that was not there for us before. Right. So, like, iOS feels, even now, like, I'm still waiting for a bunch of widgets that I know are coming and I really want to use. And, like, it's starting to finish now, which is cool. Yeah. But yes, that's coming Monday. I will say most of the apps, we should get into the actual reviews. But a lot of the apps that have updated have not updated for the 6 plus yet.

I think developers were actually surprised by this screen size. Interesting. Which is weird. Yeah, because I'm just saying you're still getting four tweets. Yeah. My Twitter is like literally to show you four. Oh, so it looks like Twitter on the iPad. Yeah, it's very.

Which is just Twitter. Although they just rolled out a bunch of new stuff. Anyway, let's talk about these reviews. And then, Dieter, you played with a bunch of Amazon new stuff yesterday. Yeah, yeah. And there's all kinds of stuff going on with their website. Wait, so, okay, here's what we need to start. Because I feel like this is the only question anybody wants to ask,

and we should actually just talk about it, is like, which one should people buy? The six or the six plus? The six plus. The six plus. Why? So I am plus. The six plus. Thanks, too.

It's definitely. So also, wait, can I just back up real quick? So my favorite thing about this phone is that everyone, almost everyone picks it up and immediately knows which one they want, right? Like you pick up, you pick up the big one. You're like, this is way too big. Or you're like, this is perfect. Let me tell you a story about the six plus.

Hold on. Let me finish. Damn it. Except for Dieter Bode. He picked it up and just immediately had a panic attack. It happens when I pick up everything, though. It's not the iPhone's fault. Oh, my God, what do I do?

The existential crises I've watched you go through over the last week have been... I settled on just the six, and I immediately regretted it. Oh, you pre-ordered one? Yeah, yeah. Which one did you get? The six. What color?

Again, but I regret it. Yeah. But I got the right color. Yeah, black. Space gray. Space gray. Well, black. Yeah, black.

I think the white makes the phones look bigger than they are. And the gold, I think, looks terrible. Yep. Fair. That's just where I'm at. So apparently, and this is totally anecdotal and may not be true, but is what I've seen, is that people who got gold got it immediately, which is the exact opposite of last year. Like, there was no weight people came on a day and late.

Yeah, because only like 10 people wanted them. Well, but last year, there weren't any. Right. But I guess there was a supply shortage, so I don't know. But space gray is a little bit delayed. and silver is super delayed. Yeah. Which is really weird and not at all what I would have guessed.

Yeah, I just, I don't think the white looks great. Well, white and silver. I think the space gray is like wear a tax. Because if they're bigger, you want them to look smaller. Yeah. I think the gold, like, I'm just telling you, I think the gold looks terrible. Yeah, I agree, but I thought that last year and lots of people liked it. No, last year, like the gold was like, it was like flashy and new and like it worked with the design and it was all like angled.

And Johnny has like, it looks like jewelry. You know, like, I don't know why he's a mobster. I mean, he's definitely John. He's gone through a rough patch in his life. He needed the money, and then he joined the mob. He doesn't need the money. I don't know.

That jokes makes no sense. Well, let's talk about the design. Let's just start. So I think the answer is a 6 plus. I have many reasons for this. I will say that today I went to lunch with Trey, Brindrette, our product officer at Fox. And I pulled out the phone and we drew a crowd.

Wow. People, like, we were just standing in line to, like, order hamburger. I thought you meant you literally like held it and drew a crowd. I was like, yeah, I was like, let me show you what I'd like my friends. And I drew a picture of people that I thought were my friends.

Like I went this many friends. You're an engineer, right? Make me friends. No, it was like we, no, like people crowded around us and like played with the phone and asked us about it.

And they're like, how do you have it already? And like, it was hilarious. Like, Trey put his like iPhone 4 on it and like, the screen is bigger than an entire iPhone 4. Nice.

People are very excited about a gigantic iPhone. And I think the big iPhone, the 6 plus is like it's the first time I've gotten an iPhone where I've thought to myself, this is a new experience. Right. Yeah. Right. Whereas with Android phones, because you switch manufacturers, you switch skins, you whatever,

every time you get new Android phones, it's like kind of a new experience. With the iPhone, it's like, this is slightly nicer. Nothing is different now. Yeah. I mean, even the 3.5 to 4 inch screen difference was like nice, but didn't actually meaningfully change anything. Right. And I think the 6 plus is like, it's exciting because it is so different.

Right. But difference is not always. Good. Like you like different for different sake. Like you you think it's hilarious that it's humongous and like walking around. It's a really simple like decision. Do you want a phone or do you want a little like everything computer almost tablet thing that you can run more most of your life off of? I mean, do you want something that you can conceivably use as both a ping pong paddle and like a deadly weapon and a laptop? I mean when you put it like that, it's kind of cool. I mean, it is, this thing is comically huge. I said it in a review.

I think the Galaxy Note 3 is actually easier to hold because it's a little bit thicker. It is squatter. It's like square. Yeah. This is really, it's top heavy in a weird way. They keep holding it. It feels like it's going to just slip out of my head. They kept the home button the same.

And so it's got the big thing on the top and the bottom so it looks symmetrical. But that means it just feels super tall. Right. And it's ridiculous to the speaker is still like there's just the one speaker on the bottom. Like Apple took their hardware design. and like literally like did a pinch zoom. Like, all right, we made a big phone, everybody. Yeah.

I think it is, I think the iPhone 3G and 3GS were like by far the ugliest iPhones ever made. Agreed. But I would put this like, this is in that pantheon. Like, I don't think it's. Burn. Really? I do not. I mean, I don't think it's anywhere near as as beautiful as the 5 and 5S.

But like, I don't think it's ugly. Yeah. I hate the outlines on the back. I really do. I mean, these outlines in the back are, but like. Like, this is like, like, this is. like Johnny I was like hammered he was like look I I have to go drive my Jaguar and then he left and they were like you know he handed somebody a magic marker and was like you do it did you read the

big business week profile on Apple that came yesterday that they hilariously called an interview it's very confusing no interview but it was a profile of Tim Cook and Apple it was good piece and it was great really well done Bradstone somebody else but really like really well done piece in the criticism of Tim Cook's reign at Apple is things that you designers have left and they, the specific complaint that they said to Business Week was where I used to sit in a meeting with Steve Jobs

and we would like hash out button design. Right. Yeah. And like have these tiny teams. Particulars of icons. Right. Now we have these like gigantic sprawling teams and things are less focused than before. And I could not tell you if that affected the design of the iPhone 6 in the 6 plus.

But I can tell you that I wouldn't be surprised if like that's how we got this intended design. Sure. Right? Because it's not, I just don't, I don't see this happening. Right. Like, if you look at the iPhone 4, it's like just a beautiful thing. If you look at the iPhone 5 and 5S, it is, they're beautiful in their way, although far less durable, in my opinion, the iPhone 4.

Yeah. Even with the, really? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Fair. They just like the iPhone 5, like the black one, just like turned silver over time. I mean, and I've dinged my 5S to hell.

So I will defend the 6 and the 6 plus. from a design standpoint, and that they're not as beautiful as the five and the four, but I think they're way more approachable. Like, the five and the four are like, I am an art object and you must, like, bow to me. And this is like, I'm designed for you to hold in your hand. I've got nice curved sides and a really, like, natural feeling screen. And it just, they feel like, because they made them so big, if they had stuck with that, like, stark design, I think it would have felt insanely imposing.

Right. I said this to, I asked some folks at Apple about this, was like, because the big question we went in with was, why don't you just make it thicker and make the battery longer? That's the question for Apple. Right. Well, and, and not have this camera bulge. Well, yeah, but that's, that's a separate thing. I don't see any camera bulge on Apple's website. I don't know what you're talking about.

But so I asked, I asked them this, and the answer, and the answer I got from two different people was it would have been horrible. And like, whether or not that's true, I don't know. but they were like, we played with, or they, you know, they looked at just blowing up the design of the 5S because everybody liked it presumably including Apple. And what they found was that you're exactly right, that a phone that looks like that and is that sort of stark and sharp and rectangular. Yeah. Bigger would just feel like crap. I will say that, which I agree with. We ask a lot of questions of a lot of like product managers and product designers. And the one answer that I always am like, I believe you, I accept it.

don't immediately assume as total garbage is we tried that and it sucked. Right. Yeah. And then you can say why and whatever. But when they like him and ha, like, oh, you know, we thought, blah, blah, but if they're like, we tried it, it was terrible. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Let's talk about that. I believe you. Right. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Here's the thing. And, you know, I've read a lot of reviews of the phone because once you review something, you want to read everybody else's reviews. And everybody talks about these phones in terms of Apple had to do this to catch up the competition.

Right. Even iOS 8 in many ways. It's like they had to start adding extensibility. They had to start adding third-party keyboards and like widgets and like actionable notifications. Like they had fallen behind in a way. And just here with the sheer screen size of the thing, they fell behind. David, I had an argument because his review, we were editing each other's reviews, your review was like, Apple had to make a big phone. And I was like, no, they had to make a regular phone.

Right. What they were making the whole time was a small phone. and they had to just get to normal. They're still smaller than the S5. They're still smaller than the Nexus 5. They're still smaller than H-C... Like, any... Everyone else's flagship phone is bigger than the iPhone.

Yeah, it's somewhere between 5 and 5.2 now. Everyone. Like, that's just where they've landed. And then the Android big phone market is even bigger than this, right? The Note 4 is 5.7. Right. They've, like, Apple's just gotten to parity with everybody.

Right. And that's like, that is kind of the story of these phones. Right? Like they're just, they've caught up now. Well, but it's also like the, I mean, that's half the story, right? And the other half is like Apple has all these entrenched advantages that it's been winning with for so long, like the camera and the app store and like the general polish of iOS that doesn't exist in Android. Right. And so like in some cynical way, they're like, okay, well, we have, we do these four things better than anybody. If we do everything else exactly as well as everybody, we're going to do these four things better and thus be the best. Right. And it's like, that's a deeply boring way to do. design a phone, which is kind of what I think they did here. But it does work. Yeah. Like, it's a successful strategy. Right. And what's, I mean, they're, I mean, like, for example,

like the note four screen is beautiful. Yes, it is. The, uh, there's other beautiful screens in the world. HEC, lots of them. LG makes a beautiful screen. HEC makes a beautiful screen. This screen is really, like, it's really good. Yeah, it is. It's less pixels per inch than just but everybody. Actually, it's less than everybody. Everyone else is like 441. Yeah.

This is 401. But they, like Apple, like, sweat the small stuff. Like, this is a joke I made in the review. Like,

everyone else is in a pixel resolution race and a pixel density race. And nobody is in a, how thin is your lamination race? Right. Because there's no spec. How close can you get to the glass race? Right.

Right. And it's like, if there is only a spec. Yeah. Like, if only Apple would be like, we have X nanometers, precision lamination.

So, that Samsung would be like, yeah, we beat that. But because they don't, like, Samsung's like, whatever. And, like, the note three screen definitely looks sunk below a layer of glass. The Note 4, I think, is a little bit the same. And it's, like, Apple's just really good at the little, like, that little thing makes the screen great. Yeah. Well, and, I mean, it's little things.

Like, we've talked about this, too, with the fact that it just curves a little right at the edge. Like, yeah. There's nothing, I can't explain that to somebody. But, like, you pick it up and it just feels right in a way that. So it's a 20-degree radial curve. Right. Come on, Samsung. What Apple needs to do is make up, they need to make up fake tech specs.

Yeah. Just like pretend stuff so that Samsung loses their mind trying to beat them. I mean, retina. Well. They did that. They need to do it more. I mean, and it worked. Like Apple did it.

And then Samsung was like, oh, retina? What about 11 times retina in your face? No one can see it in the apps on scale. Try this. But look at all those pixels. And that's, so the thing with the six is like it is just the next iPhone, right? And Apple's really good at putting up the next iPhone. Right.

And they bumped a spec and they like, the app scale and it's fine. Like it's not, I don't think it's perfect, but it's fine. The scaling you mean? Yeah. Yeah, it's fine. If you look for it, it's there. Right. But for the most part, it's fine.

It's the same thing. It's the same thing. As I tell everybody, it's like, you're like, this is too big. But it's not a problem. Right. You never notice. And then, you know, the apps will get updated and whatever. Right.

With the six plus, the scaling, I think, looks terrible. Well, what was it, the dialer that is just hilariously full of white space now? I mean, this phone is comedy gold. But just let me be clear, it is very much points to a future of, like, hybrid devices. It, like, has a brilliant camera. It has a great screen. Like, all these things, the battery's great. There are many reasons why it's the phone I want to buy.

And then there are many reasons, like, I'm literally sitting here giggling at, like, how doofy it is all the time. Doofy. You just keep watching it. You are not caught up with a doofy spec. I mean, it's just like, yeah, just like, give it a man. minute. I mean, here it is. Like, do, do, do, do. Like, that's the phone. Like, it's just a big, lumbering beast of a phone. And, like, the apps, like, the Kindle app, like, is, like, gives you a headache. The scaling in the Kindle app is so bad. It's like, this is blurry. It's, like,

looking through, what's the thing? Like, it's, like, it's, like, a wavy text on a TV screen. Like, it's blurry. It's just, like, headache-inducing. The Twitter app just got updated, and they updated it insofar as the menu bar doesn't scale, the status bar doesn't scale now, but, like, it still shows you four tweets. The landscape keyboard is a, like, I don't even know what sort of, like, comedy moment Apple was going for with that. No, the landscape keyboard is a perfect example of, like,

just because you have more space doesn't mean that you should fill it. And they were really good, especially with iOS 7, not doing that. They're like, it's okay to have white space. Right. But they're like, oh, it's a keyboard. That's like a functional area. We should cram it full of crap.

Here's, like, a decision on the landscape. There's two decisions on the landscape keyboard that are just mystified. One is the paste icon, which is, to be clear, is an icon of a bottle of glue. Yeah. And Apple thinks you, the consumer, do not understand the difference we can paste in glue. And I think that is probably accurate, because I do not understand the difference in base. I was going to ask you to explain it to me. But I know.

Paste you, it's got a little brush. Right. I know that paste does not come out of a glue bottle. Interesting. Like that, it's just obviously true. Right? It's just, it's something I know. One thing I know.

Well, I mean, like, right? Like, paste is like a dip, whatever. And then there is the fact that of all of the formatting choices you can put in a button, they picked bold. There's a button just to bold text. And I look at that. And it's just a bold B. It's just a bold B.

Which is going to be cool because you know it's going to happen a lot. People are going to go to type B and it's just going to do nothing. They're going to be like, that's a B. I would like to type that. It's like, you get the feeling that. Cook personally sends a lot of emails with bold texting it and he was just like listen Johnny I know you're in charge of design I know Steve Jobs structured this company so that you know and can tell you what to do but I want a fucking bull button

it's just so confusing and then the keyboard trolls the hell out of you yeah because when you rotate it from portrait to landscape the position of the emoji button the emoji keyboard button and they switch to numbers and symbols literally flips from portrait to landscape. No way. Yeah, so it's numbers in the outside, emoji on the inside,

when you hold it in portrait, and then you turn it and it switches. Just click on my account. There you go. Just click on my face. Click on my face, either. No, it's just like that, to me,

is like they made this keyboard and, like, they made it, they had to figure out how to, now rotate it. Come on. Like, I don't understand that at all. Well, wait a minute. No, the emoji,

stays on the left. Oh yeah, but they do flip. Yeah. Just to confuse you a little bit more. Also, this is not rotating super fast. No. I, I don't know. Can I tweet from your account right now? No. Please, please not do that. I mean, yeah, there are definitely things about, pooping. Poopin. Poopin. You can pay. If I had pooping to you live on the Vergecast, give me your phone back. No, stay away from my property. Get off my lawn. I'm just saying, like, I'm like, these are all all my complaints about the iPhone 6 plus. You've just heard all of them. The thing is, you just ran out a big list and then you're like, buy, like, it's stupid and weird and there's bad software.

Buy it. Well, the bad software is like, don't buy the one that doesn't have any of those problems. If I, for every other company, when they put out a phone with bad software, I'm like, don't buy it. And I, like, kill them for bad software. Sure. Samsung puts out of phone on AT&T with bad software. I'm like, you are doomed for six months to experience this bad software.

With Apple, it's like, probably. in two weeks, all the apps will be updated and Apple will fix that keyboard. Well, actually, no. They didn't fix the shift key button. Yeah. So I have no faith. Whatever. Don't buy an iPhone. Here's what you should do. Throw away all of your phones. The shift key ruined.

Go on eBay, look up R-A-ZR. Yeah. Buy a Sony Erickson W-810I. Yes. Yes. Yes. And just live a life knowing that that is the pinnacle of technology. Yeah, I can't disagree with that at all. I mean, it's a phone and a

Walkman. Do you try to use a six plus one-handed? Because that's the reason I didn't get it. I've got big enough hands to do it, but it's awkward, and I would just drop the thing. And I've shattered two phones in the past month. And so it was time for me to admit that I am a huge klutz. Yeah. And I would drop that, and I'm less likely to drop a small one.

That's why I got the small one. David and I actually wrote the exact, independently wrote the exact same paragraph in our reviews, which was these are the first iPhones that are better in cases. Yeah. And I'm just going to say it. I've never had a case on my phone before, ever. Never. And like, you kind of need to do it.

Yeah. What's, I mean, I'm just going to say it. When you put the big one in a case, it looks like a Samsung phone. Yeah, it does. Like, just does. Yep. There's like, there's an element of, I mean, it's like the way the cases are shaped and like the white and the color. Like, show, we got a close up on the camera there.

Here. Let's struggle to put a phone in a case. Yay. These cases feel really nice, by the way. I got a lot of questions about, like, how they're going to hold up over time. And the answers, I have no idea. But they feel really nice. The leather.

I'm into the leather. The leather on the MotoX. I'm really happy. The leather on this. Like, it's really nice. Yeah. Now, it's a Samsung phone. Yeah, flip it over.

Like, you cannot tell that that's not a Samsung. Right. Well, it's a case. Yeah. But there's like an element to this, this specific aesthetic of the phone that is very Samsung-y. Which is because it's a giant phone in the case. Samsung.

Look, here's the thing. All of these complaints aside, what I know about this phone is that I'm never going to is my iPad Mini again and never even consider buying another iPad Mini. There is a shot in our video, you should go watch it, where if you watch a 16 by 9 video on the iPad Mini, because it's letterboxed, the actual size of the video you're watching is only marginally bigger than a video on this phone, which is like, that's the game. That's why I have an iPad Mini, right? Because I want to, like, watch things on a bigger screen.

I have an iPad Air, which I, like, very fond of. I am struggling to think of reasons to, like, get it now. because all it really offers me is yet another bigger screen. And I think that's like super interesting. Yeah, but we need to see iOS on the iPad Air start to do some like proper stuff. No, that's what I'm saying. I think there's a world in which the little phone becomes like a little phone. This becomes a primary computing platform thing.

And the iPad becomes like a truck, right? To like stretch that metaphor. Right. The iPad becomes they focus on actual productivity with the iPad the way that Microsoft, quite frankly, has been focused on it with the Surface Pro this whole time. Well, that's when the split screen multitasking comes in, which is a thing that this is not big enough to pull off. Yeah.

That would be great. Just come on. Yeah. Just guys. I'm telling you, Deeter, you're engaged now and you just don't want to share that device. Nope. I'm kidding. I have no idea.

Because Lisa's always like pooping. No, if you give it your kid, whatever. I don't know. Do you have any thoughts on the six? I feel like I've rambled on about the six plus. I mean, my thing about the six is like, it's, the six plus is way more interesting in terms of like what it could and might someday be. I mean, what you said that I've been thinking about a lot about over the last few days is that your argument is that in three years, this will just be the iPhone. Yeah.

That there won't be a smaller one. It'll just be that that you buy. Yeah. And like, I actually think you're right. I hope you're not, but I think you are. But for me, it's like this is, like, there are a lot of bad things about the fact that this is just another iPhone. but it's also like I don't need something else right like I sit at my laptop all the time and when I'm on the subway I want like a thing I can hold in one hand and like play games on

or read on or whatever and this is that right like I don't need this giant productivity machine like I actually you kind of do because you've been slacking that's more refused I think the the like this makes sense to me in a lot of markets where for most people their phones are already their primary computers. And that's just like a thing. And that's a growing thing in the world. But for me, personally, that's just not how I operate. I'm excited for this to become my primary computer.

Yeah, see, I think that's insane. No. Why is that insane? It's only insane because the software isn't good enough for it to be that yet. That's the only reason it's insane. Period. And like, Samsung's like trying to do that with a note. I mean, the problem just straight out is that Samsung is not as good at software.

Right. Like they have really interesting ideas about how to do all that. stuff on the note and I actually I mean I like the note every time I see one on the subway or out in the world I'm like I love big screens and then I like play with the software I'm like I hate your software yeah that's that's the only problem with the note is that yeah it's cool to do split screen and like resize the apps and do the swipy thing to make a little phone on the screen and use it like that would all be great if it was like smooth and worked well but that's what I'm saying like Samsung is at least trying and like I forever will think that the Samsung Node Edge is the

interesting phone that's come out recently because it's weird and probably not going to work, but it's different and they're trying stuff. And like Samsung, you can say a lot of things about Samsung, but they try stuff. Yeah. And they're not trying anything here. Like this is, literally all this is, is like you're getting a slightly bigger version of the video that I'm getting on here. And what I'm getting is like a more ergonomic thing that actually fits in my pocket. Right. And that doesn't obscure your face when I try to take a picture. Like that for me is a really easy tradeoff. So like in three years, I might be happy to buy this. Right.

And when they make it worth being slightly bigger or when the watch comes out and makes it so that I'm not taking my phone out of my bag very often, great. And there are a million reasons this is useful to have. But for right now, for like a thing I use constantly in short bursts all the time, I'd rather have the thing that fits

if the experience is the same. And the experience is the same. Right. They haven't done enough with the software to make the experience different. No, all you get is like a two-paned messages window, which doesn't really do anything for me. Yeah.

I mean, they are, that's the thing. You get the feeling Apple, like, made some concessions to how big the phone was instead of having a plan. Right. And the email I've gotten a few times is that, like, that's the talk, right? Like, this is the tick where they're like, here's this crazy, weird new thing. And then the next time they're going to come out and they're going to be. Like, here's stuff to do with it.

Yeah. And that's, that may well be the case, but that's a year from now. That's why, like, I'll get that one when they get the software. Right. Like, in three years, I will gladly buy this phone. Right. But for right now, it's like it's not worth the tradeoff of it. Did we talk to you out of this phone yet?

No. Sitting awkwardly. I got one more Trump card. Oh, here it is. Which is the camera is slightly better. And that, and I, the experience of taking photos. Like, I, like, using this phone has made me understand why people take photos with their tablets. Because it's like, wow, I just became a much better photographer just by having the ability to frame stuff better.

It's true. You should get glasses. Well, no. I should get a gigantic screen. Super easy. Either I can wear glasses, like a nerd. Or I can get a huge phone. Like I'm sorry.

Well, I wear glasses. Nailed it. You know I'm wearing contact lenses now. I'm sorry, do you want to try my chain phone? If you try and hand that phone to me now, I'll drop it because I can't see anything. Who's that laughing at me over there?

What's going on? I mean, look, I'm just saying. I think this is the one. Like, mostly for the fact that it is so different. And you're right. I appreciate different. Well, you just appreciate different because you have a different. Because you haven't had different because you've been...

No, I love my Nexus 5. I think that's a great phone. Yeah. If that phone had a great camera, I don't know that. Nexus 5 that apparently is prone to the screen shattering. Yeah, people... You mean when you drop it on the ground, it shatters? I dropped it like a foot.

If you buy it from Google Play, like, you can like... People on Twitter told me about this. You can, like, trick your way into, like, having them just fix that for you. Yeah. Fair. So here's what I think is which, like, we have, you know, differences of opinion, but which is going to sell better? They pre-hundred four million of them?

The big one. The small one. I think it's the small one. I don't even think it's going to be close. I think a lot of people are going to return the big one and get the small one. Really? That's what I think. I think a lot of people don't understand how much bigger than their iPhone five this is.

I mean, it is like the screen is as tall as an entire iPhone five. Yeah, I mean, it's... Like, this is comedy. Like, I'm telling... Do, do, do. No, and I think, like, there are a lot of people. people, at least people that I know who are going to be upgrading from like a 4S to this, and it's going to feel terrible. And I think people would get used to it, but in the 15-day

return period are going to take it back and get a 6. I disagree with you. Because I've had so many people who I hand this to, and they're like, oh my God, that's way too big. And it's like, that's the small one. Sorry about your life. There's no, I mean, this is barely even perceptible to me. If this, if I wasn't holding a 5S in one hand and the six in the other, I would just tell that this is a five, like the same size of five. I don't know. That's my, that's my, that's my. So other than, other than, uh, the adapting to screen size, how do you guys feel about iOS 8? I haven't used it yet. I've been waiting for the, the six to come so I can get it. I always say it definitely just feels like they thought it through

this time. Right. And it's like David saying the stuff, we're just now seeing the apps take advantage of it. Right. And all the keyboard people are ready to go, which is like adorable. I know. But, I think like, understanding how. photo apps are going to plug into the extensibility. I think until Yosemite comes out and we can play with like handoff and continuity and all that stuff. I mean, that's the one thing. Like, we kind of said this is WWDC that like that's the one thing that's game changing. Everything else is like cool and should have been there.

And my thing is like I love almost everything about iOS 8 and it doesn't make any sense to me why they didn't release it a year ago. But handoff and continuity are the two things that are like no one is doing that. And that's like if that's why you buy into it. an Apple ecosystem is for that stuff. Right. And that's huge. Taking a phone call from my Mac is like, it will just bring the pain of making a phone call in AT&T to every part of my life.

Yeah, I mean, and I do this like jacked up thing all the time where I'll open a Google Maps link on Chrome on my computer and then I go to Chrome on my phone and then open up Chrome and then I'm like, oh, there are devices. And then I wait for it to refresh and then I open that tab up again. And just being able to go and like swipe up from the bottom left corner and there's my map is huge. Yeah.

Like that's amazing. Too bad. It's Apple Maps. Yeah, so I won't get where I'm going. No. But at least it'll look cool. No, I mean, that's the stuff. Like, I always say it is like a clear, like, iOS 7 was very messy in places.

Yeah. I think everyone just admits it now. I always say it clearly refines all the broken parts of it and makes it more extensible and bigger. But it's, as with all of these things, it's like, when will the app developers show up? And the answer right now appears to be right away. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is why they did, this is why they talked about it at WWDC.

They were like, go build this stuff. We can't tell you why, but it's going to be great. I will say the iOS 8 on my 5S feels very small. Yeah. Like the adding the extra row of predictive text above the keyboard, the keyboard now takes up, you know, 55% of the screen. Wow. Which is crazy. And then like you pull down and if I have like eight widgets and it takes like an hour

and a half to scroll through them all and all this stuff is like it's clearly designed for bigger devices, which makes sense. That's what they sell now. Yeah. But it's like, updating was my phone, my 5S1 update. Why? I don't know. Just airing it. It just hates you? Yeah, whatever. I mean, it's so broken. It knows it's not long for this world. I mean, I'm sorry.

I'm legitimately worried to know what my iPad mini is going to do with iOS 8. He's going to die. It's going to die. They want you to buy a new one. Or they want you to buy a Kindle tablet. Hey. Segway. All right, dude, are you played with a bunch of the Amazon stuff? Yeah, Amazon, it's like 50 things. Day.

Yeah. So there's a new HDX 8.9 inch tablet. It's a spec bump. I don't care about it. I'm sorry. They announced new HD7 and HD6 tablets, so it's like super low-end tablets. And the HD6, which is like bordering on can you even call it a tablet? It's a six-inch screen.

It's 99 bucks. It's an iPod Touch. It's an iPod Touch. It's actually kind of insane. And for $99 and you've got already got an Amazon Prime membership because of course you do. You've got like a $100 thing that you can watch Amazon video on. You can like chuck it and it's more durable than other Android tablets. It's like relatively sturdy.

And if you lose it, it's $100. Yeah. I mean, this is what I've been saying forever. It's like, and this is the, you know, the logic of Amazon giving their devices away for free. And in a real way, $100 is like a huge step in that direction. but like Amazon has this big trove of content. Yeah. And if you pay $100 a year, it's all free.

Yeah. Right. And so this is like, nobody is more set up to have an iPod touch than Amazon. Yeah. So the thing about the six and the seven is like they're low end Android tablets. They're running some media tech processor. Who knows? That's truest sign of quality.

Well, it might, they might be terrible. When I think good user experience, I think media tech. But Firebase seems smooth on it, but who knows? Like Amazon has crappy games and a media tech processor will stream your video and music. That is the thing. Like if the thing is slow and like jaggy and whatever, as long as it will play that video, I don't care. Right. It's $100 and I'm going to be able to pull it out on a plane and watch the Amazon Prime video.

Because you can watch that, you can watch that download. You can download Amazon Prime videos or a bunch of them. I mean, I'm just saying. I don't understand. Like, I think Amazon software strategy is not good. It's not great. The content strategy is really good. And their content strategy is also not going to a way.

So their kid strategy is better than anybody else's. And this is super weird. So you can buy the kid version of these tablets, $50 more. You get this giant bouncy case that kids can hold. But you also get a two-year warranty. Like literally you can take the tablet, smash it with the ball, peen hammer. They'll send it back. They'll send you a new one.

Saw it in half. Make sure you send at least 51% back. They'll send you a new one for two years. No question is we don't care. Just so, like, you can buy this thing for $100. Turn on all the parental controls of, like, what kind of apps you can use, knowing that purchases, blah, blah, blah. Get the free year of, like, you get to watch Dora or whatever.

They got a bunch of stuff. I think they got Disney in free time. Yeah. And just like, here's a $100 tablet and you are free to destroy it. Go away. The best parenting tool in the history of time. And then America. All good things end with you tell you.

Go away. Yeah. Go, child. Learn from this tablet. Listen, Dorn the Explorer teaches people how to speak Spanish. So, don't you hate on Dior Daylor Daylor? It teaches people that Diego is just useless. Really?

I'm just saying, like, I've watched a lot of Dora with my niece and nephew. Your niece and nephew. Thankfully, there's time. And, man, Diego, dude, get it together. Just like, get your shit together, Diego. Like, you're always lost. So, like, you're just, you're never in the right place. Tell me the truth about Swiper.

Is Swiper actually, like, scary? No. When I was a kid, the villains were, like, scared. No, no, swipers are like an adorable raccoon. He's like, yeah, whatever. And Dora's like, oh, man, you're swiping. Like, whatever. I have a question.

Can we pivot this podcast to just be recaps of Dora the Explorer? Oh, great. I feel like that is a large, untapped market. Actually, Dora and Diego go to a place. Diego screws up catastrophically. Someone else swipe or no swiping, and then everything is resolved. Well, Dora uses her bilingual skills. Don't forget that.

She uses her bilingual skills, and she says pack pack. Right. I mean, Dora's legit. Like, as a lady, like, she's like, she's on her game, right? Like, hold on, I'm just going to tweet that. What? What? I'm saying, like, Dora, like, it's clear that children should idolize Dora. Yeah.

I'm saying that if you're, if you are into Diego, you are headed down a life of misery. Right. Like, that's your wrong role model. So I've watched a lot of Dora. Like, it's just a thing that happened in my life. Now, keep going. I feel like this has been waiting inside of you for a lot. a time.

Diego's bullshit. That's awesome. All right. The best thing Amazon announced was the voyage, the Kindle voyage. Yeah. It's really good. Okay, wait. I don't understand because I have a paperweight.

And it's a pile of garbage. Perfect. It is. I have zero problem. Like, I've never had fewer problems with a device. You have so many problems. Why? It is slow.

The screen is not flush. The screen is plastic and scratches easily. It does scratch easily. It's too heavy. It's too thick. It's too heavy. Uh-huh. Is this the game we're about to play?

And the paper white is too heavy? Yes. Oh, crap. You're crazy. And the screen is not 300 pixels per inch. That's true. I'll give you that. And it refreshes too slowly.

And it doesn't have physical buttons that you can just like squeeze it to turn the Yeah, wait. How does that actually work? I don't understand that. That's it. Like the bezel physically like compresses. You like physically just like give a little tiny squeeze to the bezel. Like not too hard.

And then there's like haptic feedback. The other reason your paper white sucks is it doesn't have auto adjusting on the brightness. And even if it did, it still sucks because if you're reading in bed in the dark, it doesn't get dimmer over time because it knows your eyes are adjusting to the darkness. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I ordered one. Did you really? Yeah, because Deider texted me last night and he's like, I bought a voyage and then I felt, I would say like a deep American materialistic. Like a what? A purchase can be made and I haven't.

somebody else has something that I might not The president might know that I haven't done my duty My Cadillac has bigger fins on it than yours Dude here's here's my dream fleet right now 2001 escalate Used escalate I saw one on a weekend trip For a sale for $9,000

And I thought to myself I bet I could talk to the $7,000 And then it would be a deal And have seriously They've been eBay on eBay motors looking at 2001 escalates for some time now. Why would you want, dude? I don't know.

Impala. No, no. The slate is like a critical element of a fleet. And then a new Mustang. The 2015 Mustang? Yeah. You will drive. The only time you'll drive it is when you're moving parking spots because you live in New York.

No, I'll drive the Mustang to the garage with a 2001 escalates constantly being repaired. Then I think you'll just roll down the east side highway. I'm just saying, like, I think the verge should have an escalate. I'm fine with that. What? No. We could all get in it and like go places. Only if you convert it.

Think of the camaraderie. Only if you convert it to run off of like crickets. Or like biodiesel. Bio diesel. No, no, crickets. Just crickets. Biodesel is like isn't, you can like just roll up. Like in that.

Roll to a fry shop. Let me paint you a scene. We're all in our sweet escalate. Okay, hold on. I'm going to close my head. And then we just like, we're like driving around. It smells like French fries because we're doing biodiesel. Who's driving?

It doesn't matter. We all take turns, right? And then, like, the rest of us are just, like, hanging out. Your eyes are open. And then we're like, man, I'm like French fries. We're, like, out of gas. And then we, like, roll up behind a McDonald's and, like, steal their oil. And then, like, that's how we, no?

Okay. It got weird at the end. I was with you for so long there. I was super in. That's the biodiesel stories. Like, you're constantly, like, going to. Shouldn't you guys like growing up? Or, like, fusion powered?

We could do fusion, like a mystery. We need a misre fusion. Yeah. What if, what if we get, you on muscle? 2001 escalate. To like pimp my ride style our 2001 escalated. We should actually talk about it. So Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are like in a rocket ship war, right?

Like didn't, didn't, uh, Bezos did something else with like spaceship blue or whatever something that's called. And then Elon Musk, like, I love the idea that like billionaires desperately want to go to space. Is this a place where, um, oh, that's right. They. Is this a place where like capitalism and competition is the best thing? Yeah, I mean, it is, but like maybe if they worked together, it would be cheaper and we would get up there faster with cooler stuff. No, but they want to each be in their own.

I mean, like, they're like months away from like mounting guns on one of our spaceship and like having like billionaire laser fights in space. That would be so sick. I mean, that is definitely like a sci-fi show waiting to happen. No, I mean, it isn't. Yeah. Also, I'm kind of a video of Elon Musk. Hit my ride. Moon, yeah.

It's called Moon Raker. No, here's an idea. This one's free for everybody. You get billionaires and you make him play laser tag. That's the whole show. Billionaire laser fight. Did they get to like design their own? Did you have laser tag as a kid?

I was not allowed to have laser tag as a kid. But I was allowed to have the version of laser tag that was with like an actual like replica beretta. Like it looked like a gun, like a real gun. You and I grew up in the era where guns were allowed to look like guns. Yeah, no, we like, we played guns. That was what you did as a kid. They didn't have like orange caps. No, no, no.

They would, it looked like, it looked like a gun. Yeah, I actually just owned it. It was actually, as long as it's unloaded. It was just an unloaded fire on the toy with. No, I had, my nest zapper was gray. And then like two years later, they made them all orange. Yeah. No, but I was not allowed to own laser tag, but there were many leisure tag facilities in the region.

Oh. Yeah. That's what we had, too. Yeah. But did you play the laser tag where you shoot each other or the laser tag? tag where you all just shoot at targets. Each other. Of course each other.

Even if it's the laser tag where you shoot at targets. Now all it is is targets. That sucks. Yeah. It's like, let's run around and just like look at each other while we shoot at targets. Yeah, there's like, if there's fun laser tag out there, I will go anywhere in America to play fun laser tag. In our 2001. Yes.

It gets phenomenal gas mileage. But yeah, there's like targets up in the corner of the room and you just run around and shoot those. Yeah. which just sounds horrible. So you just become the first person? They've ruined laser targets. Well, like, they can still shoot you, but you don't get points by shooting them. Like, if you're shooting at the target, I shoot you, and then you have to, like, go away and

recharge and then come back and keep shooting the target. Instead of, like, how many people did you kill? 50 you win. That's how laser tag works. The world's ultimate griefer. Basically, not shoot the targets, just kill everybody. Yes. Cool.

Oh, we should have on Minecraft. Speaking of grievers. Let's wrap up on Minecraft. So, somebody explain Minecraft to me. The game or the event that happened surrounding it? All of it. The game is awesome and you should play it. Yeah, and it's fun and creative and helps kids learn and helps you build castles in the sky.

Okay, here's a question I don't know the answer to you. How does Minecraft make money? They sell games. Yeah, they sell expansion packs and things. Because like the basics of Minecraft is free, right? Right. But they sell more. Right.

And they also like license like collectibles. Yeah. It's just a franchise. Right. But is that worth a $2 billion? It was $2 billion, right? Yeah. $2.5.

Oh, that's right. It was $2.5 billion. How is that worth $2.5 billion to Microsoft? Because it's like it's the, it's the future of Lego. Like it's like the number. But is it like Minecraft going to be cool for 50 years? Yes. Really?

Yeah. I don't know, man. Like if you talk to all of the, various Vox dads who like play Minecraft with their kids are like all super into it. Yeah. No, that's definitely true. There's like this whole army of nine year olds who are super obsessed

with Minecraft. Yeah, and they have like their own servers and like they have their own communities and like that all I get. It's just I, maybe I should play the game more. Here's my dream. I've been thinking about this. So Notch quit Mojang, right? When they sold it to Microsoft. He said, I don't want to be responsible. Oh, by the way, Minecraft is not free on every platform.

It's like depending on the platform or cost money. Oh, really? Okay, fair enough. So Notch quit. He wrote this, like, very emotional letter about, like, I don't want to be a part of this. Like, I don't take responsibility. I just want to play games. But, like, it's a really easy thing to write after you sell your company for $2.5 billion.

Like, not to be cynical about it, but, like, if you're like, I don't want to be part of this, then just leave. Don't sell for $2.5 billion. What are you going to do? Like, would you rather he just, like, lit the whole thing on fire? No, but, like, you don't get to take. You don't get to take this. That's like why he sold it. Yeah.

He sold it because he was in charge. And he was like, this needs a steward. Right. And the only steward is like this company. So I'm selling it. And that's fine. All that's fine. Well, it just felt, I don't know.

The letter felt very holier than thou to me in a way that I don't think it needed to. Did you watch the, I mean, he referenced that that 20 minute video about Phil Fish, or 10 minute video about Phil Fish about like how he's become a symbol of like, like the internet's ability to like hate famous people on the internet. Oh yeah. Yeah. And like it's actually, it's a really smart thing.

And so this guy like is honest and he says, I do not want to be the figurehead in charge of this game and also manage this whole game. Like selling it to me seems like a relatively virtuous thing to do. All right. That's fair. That's fair. If that's legit. Yeah.

If that's what he was after, that's fine. I'm just saying I think we should get, we should get Paul Miller to interview notch and just talk about like leaving. Yeah. Like is quitting. Yeah. Like, the vibe to me was very much...

Paul Miller invented the internet and then left. That's true. He wired the first ether cables. No, the vibe, when I read that letter, the vibe was very much when Paul left the internet. And I was like, we should get these people in it. So Paul, if you're out there, I know that you are. Paul, love you buddy. Notch.

I don't know what you're doing now. Not reclining on a bed of money. Not feeling not responsible for anything. Talk to me. Get at me. Yeah. It's all be in a room together. Talking.

It won't be awkward at all. No one will bring up Dora or Eskaloids. What else? Anything else? There's some Windows stuff coming up at the end of the month. Yeah, Windows 9. There's a technical preview, and then we also, Tom Warren, put up some, we had some screenshots of an upcoming version of Office that has a little help box that is reminiscent, although not cartoony of Clippy. New Clippy. Yeah.

Not Clippy. It's like Clippy-esque. It's Clippy-esque. I mean, can Microsoft get away with doing anything Clippy-esque without people calling it clipy? No. Tom will be here next week. We should put them on the show. That's true.

We'll do a long Windows preview with Tom Warren. Yeah. It looks good. Did you see he retweeted somebody's Vine where it's like I got a copy at Windows 9 and you open it up and it's Windows 7 DVD with a sorry for Windows 8 posted note on it. That's pretty great. Man, Windows 8. Yeah. You know, I have a Surface Pro 2 in my house.

I was playing with it the other day. I just have one. And man. Yeah. That's so close. So far. Like, so close. I like the Service Pro 3.

You know my theory about Apple fanboys? I think Apple fanboys are beginning to root for Microsoft because they're tired of being like the big dogs and they hate Google and they need a new underdog to replace Google. That's interesting. It's like a psychological theory that I have. I mean, I also think that,

and we've been saying this for a long time, that I think Microsoft is attempting to do a lot of the right things. What Apple is doing, like the story you tell about this is the same story that Microsoft tells about the surface. They just did it wrong. Yeah. And it's like if Windows 9 is them figuring out how to do it, that's awesome. It's them walking Windows 8 all the way back. Just all the way back.

You think so? Yeah. I mean, there's a start menu again. They're taking all the ideas from Windows 8 and putting them in a box inside the start menu. Like, how is that not the best metaphor? Oh, man. Oh, Microsoft. You're going to get there someday, I promise you.

Before we go, I want to talk about the Apple Watch, because we haven't talked about the watch yet. We've talked about the watch all this week. You guys weren't here. I wasn't here. I will say, I'm going to actually. I've not changed my mind. Actually, I am more and more convinced the watch is a disaster, the more and more I think about it. Wow.

I have approximately 23 opinions about the watch, and I want to just put them all on a page. I just haven't done it. Fair enough. But no, I cannot get away from the idea that it is a watch with a right click. Right? And like that is just weird to me. I don't understand it. Force touch.

Like bad brain. It's just, it's like, it's just a collection of here's, this is going to sound really weird. Here's like the thing I look at the watch and I think of the incredible collection of like a player talent they've assembled. now freely obviously like enter the fashion market with the watch. And like the thing I'm thinking about is all of these people are in charge.

Right? Like you can't hire the CEO of Burberry and the CEO of Eve St. Laurent and VP from Adobe and like the business week article said like Tim Cook had his number one guy like be in charge of it. And like Johnny Ive is still there and Phil Schiller is still there. And like

none of those people are all of them are in charge and none of them are in charge. Right. That is the clear. You don't hire those people by saying you work for so and so. Right. And it's like maybe they're in charge of like slices, but there isn't one person.

Like that's what I think about the watch. It looks to me like one person wasn't in charge. Fair. And that like that is just expressed in like the idea that you can force touch it, which is, it is just a weird interaction paradigm and it is not the right one. Force touch is come, coming to Iowa. It's like just coming to the iPhone. Dude, this is the thing like I.

Get ready. It's coming. They described it as a screen technology. That is the next thing they're going to do for screen. And you know how you make a big screen work better in one hand is force touch. Like you let you do more things by touching the parts of the screen that you can touch. I mean, this is a company that literally only had one button on its mice for like 20 years. Right.

Like that's what I mean. Like philosophically, I don't understand this paradigm. Oh, sure. I'm disagreeing with Dieter that like force touch is coming to the iPhone. You're disagreeing? No, I'm agreeing with Teter. I've just agreed. No, I'm just like, that's fine.

And like, yeah, I use right click on my Mac all the time now. And like, long pressing isn't interesting. But like, it is, I just cannot get away from the idea. And this is like somebody very smart said this to me. Smaller screens demand fewer interaction methods, right? Sure. And like this one has so, it's a. Let's say they invented multi-touch.

It's the smallest screen and it has the most interaction method. That's why they use multi-touch. Can you pinch to zoom on the Apple? No, you have to use a crowd. You use a dial. But can you also pinch to Zoom? That's great. Like, I'm just saying, like, all of that.

And, like, I understand the argument that they haven't shown us all the software, that, like, they're still working on it. Like, I don't think it's going to come out for a long time. And I understand that, like, maybe it's, like, really expensive. And, like, it's a market out, whatever. What I do absolutely know is that it is impossible from what we have seen so far to explain to somebody how to use it. And that is crazy. Yeah. Like that is not like that that that's so far out of like the zone for Apple that I like people pick up an iPhone and they like they figured out how to use it.

So I was actually instantly, I was thinking about this. When the when the iPhone first got announced and then it came out, they had that, you know, however many month period where they were just blasting commercials and all the commercials were was here's the iPhone. Here's how to do stuff on it. And but here's the thing about those commercials. Every single one of them was like, holy crap, that looks awesome. I need to do that. Those are things I like to do. I see how easy that is.

Yeah. The commercial, they weren't doing that. Yeah. They were, they were like, look at how easy it is. Yeah, there were instructions that were also like advertisements for a thing that you want. Right. I don't know how those commercials would work for the Apple Watch. You've got this watch and you really want to look at a map on it.

Right. I don't know. I'm just like, I. It's the photo. that gets me every time. They're like, we've found ways for you to carry your photos, and then he scrolls out

and it's just a million one pixel icons of photos. Like, I don't know who that's useful to is just no one. It's a motor 360. Yeah, sure does. This watch has a crown. It's like the last thing I want to do is monkey with this knob.

Right. Like, you're not supposed to monkey with it all that often. I don't know. I just, I am deeply, deeply skeptical. And it's not because Apple didn't have a killer app. It's not because I think it should be cheaper.

Like none of that stuff. I'm skeptical because I think there's too many ways to interact with it. And I think that all seems really messy to me. I mean, luckily, you know, they have probably, what, 10 months to figure it out? Maybe they will. I mean, yeah, I don't think it's going to do until June. But we'll see. I mean, they're not shying away from the fact that this is like historic.

And like, it's, Tim Cook is betting his legacy on this watch. Right. So he has proven to be a smart CEO in the past. I'm assuming that he's putting resources against this. Yeah, I mean, you don't, they're not going to bail on this. Like, they'll just, yeah, the first one, they're like, sorry guys, bad move. We're done. Right.

But just put on the shelf next to your folio. Right. But like you kind of hope that like in Tim Cook's office, there's like a huge glass display case. And in it, there's just two objects. There's a Newton and there's an iPhone. And like, he's like, man, we got to do this one. Right? Because the Newton was a great.

great idea and it had tons of potential. And like another CEO made it who wasn't Steve Jobs. And like that if they had just kept grinding on the Newton, it would have turned into something. It probably would have turned into the iPhone. I don't know about that. Right. But like Steve House came back.

It would have turned into the trio. Right. It was like the right. It was a lot of really good ideas about that paradigm. And it would have just kept going. And nobody would have faulted them for continuing. Sure. And then there's the iPhone, which was like a revolution.

Right. And it's, you just have to. to think like... So Apple could have either been Blackberry or Apple. Yeah, exactly. You have to think, like, this watch. Like, we know so much,

so little about it. Right. It's either the world's best Moto 360 or the world's best pebble or it's a revolution. And like, you just hope that like Tim Cook is actually thinking in those terms. Yeah.

Fair. Because he's, what he's saying over and over again is this is a revolution. And then you look at it and it's like, but why is it? Right. It's just a pretty good... That as far as I can tell is not the answer at all. I mean, we want a revolution.

and Apple is like they're all doing what they can. Right. We're done. I'm getting in my 2001 escalone. I'm going home. I'm going to listen to YouTube album. It was right there. All right.

Are we going to talk about the YouTube album? No. No. It's fine. The upro over the YouTube album is like it is like a year ago if Apple had given everybody a free YouTube album, nobody would have cared. Yeah. But after like the NSA and ICloud leaks. Sure.

Is the government looking, like Apple just like dumping stuff on your phone? It's terrifying. Yeah. Right? If Dropbox, I'm like, everybody's Dropbox and I was a YouTube album in it, nobody would have cared. I would have cared. Not if they didn't take your storage and you could just like, here's a link and you could like open it and it. Yeah, or they didn't take your storage, I suppose.

But if they like, if they shot that stuff shit down to my computer, because that's how Dropbox works, it sinks to your computer. That's fair. That's like, to me, that's the problem with the YouTube album. It's like, that's like 20 megabytes of stuff that I would. like to keep on, like, open for pictures. Also, the album is bad. Also, the idea that what people, like, Apple thinks what people want is, like, to download MP3 files.

Yeah. Yeah. There's many things about that. I mean, like, well, the other thing. Why didn't, why didn't Jimmy Iovine stop this? Why didn't they put it on beats music? Yeah. Just put it on beats.

Because I, they probably can't yet. Well, but Apple's already, like, it's, they're talking a lot about beats music. Like, Tim Cook went on Charlie Rose and talked a lot about beats music. It was in this. Business Week profile. It was like, it's on Apple TV now. I thought, it could have been, even if you don't subscribe to beats, you can listen to this YouTube album on the beats app for free for eternity.

Yeah. Go ahead and make sure you open your beats app. The problem is that doesn't make YouTube any money. At the end of the day, no, what makes YouTube money is Apple. I mean, don't you think Apple paid YouTube for this? No, but like YouTube wants to run out. Like, they, I mean, YouTube wants reach. Like, they want 500 million people to have their phone.

They want all the people to have it. They want like, beat music isn't. every country, they've negotiated, blah, blah, blah, and they want to be able to say, this is the most downloaded album ever, like the biggest selling album since X. And Apple paid them for that, they gave them that marketing,

they got in trouble for it, but at least they tried. If they put it on beats, it's like you two sold out to sell beats. And that's, that is a different, I mean, you know,

you know, but like the Samsung deal with the Jay-Z? Yeah. Didn't hurt him. Well, he's Jay-Z. I mean, like, honestly, like, if there's anyone on earth

who's immune to that, it's jazy. But at the same time, like, nobody's mad at you too. Like, I, I'm not, I'm not seeing, I mean, the album sucks, but like, I'm not seeing anybody accusing you. It's always like Bono's head with a little speech bubble coming out of it going, ha ha. That's all I see. Well, you two got paid. Like, whatever. Like, they made like a pretty mediocre record and they got paid. Like, good for YouTube. Pretty mediocre is like a, the kindest thing I've said about that record. This is the most mediocre. It's right there. Well, I heard, my favorite solution to this whole problem was, I forget where I heard it, but somebody was like, what if they just put better, you. YouTube albums on instead. Everybody gets a Joshua tree. We'll solve this by giving you other U2 albums. No, I mean like, I mean, it's you two, man. Like, it's, it's fine.

It's just, it's just nothing. You two came after a credit card service. Yeah. In the scope of that presentation, it was like, we, we're going to change the world with MasterCard and Amex and Visa and here's you two everybody. And it's like, this is weird. Yeah.

The Edge's guitar tone is the, best though. It was so good at that. I mean like just I was out of the room by the room by that. I was too. I stayed for like eight seconds just to let him envelope me in his like Vox AC30. It was really and you wept. It was great. It was very nice. It was a very nice guitar sound.

Whatever, you too. Like they Apple needs to get to beats music. They need to get to a place with beats music where you two wants to put out free albums on there instead of being like let's pump them through iTunes. But how do you? They are just not there yet. Right, but there's no way to do that but to do it. Right. Like that if Apple has proven one thing, it's that it in four seconds can make something huge. No, not that yet.

Why? Just not yet. Why? Like, I saw, it took them five years to make iTunes radio. No, it's like I saw, I talked to Jimmy I mean at that event. But this is what I'm saying is like if they take a thing. But you just said they're fast. No, they're fast at taking something that exists and making it mainstream.

Like they came out with Apple Pay, which everyone has already done. And they said Apple Pay and then suddenly everybody's into it. I mean, I mean, at the event. And I was like, how's it going? And he's like, it's my sixth week. Right. Fair. And I was like, yo, it's my sixth week being the editor-in-chief of the verge.

And then we, like, had like a hilarious, like, fish out of water, a story moment. Like, like, can you just stop with the Jimmy I mean, Humble Brags, please? Just for like a minute. I'm a big fan of Jimmy Ivan. I got Gwen Stefani, like, hit me in the shoulder and she walked by. She was, you guys are friends now? No, it was a get the hell out of my way. You useless.

No way. Yeah. Right. I was friends with the guy in Sublime. That's what Gwen Stefani is thinking of yourself all the time. like I knew that dude and you never can I'm awesome because I would like

yeah I'd like to know that guy Like I went through a sublime phase Super dark It's not that dark I just listened that record again recently And I was like 40th's freedom Yeah that good record That one and then like the like the

Sublime record Oh yeah just came on It was like we were like a house It was like beachy I was like we should listen to some sublime And then we did And that was great That's sweet story

That story everybody No, I tried super hard to creep on Angela Aaron's talking to Will I am, and it was just impossible. Like they... I feel like there's a force field around that. It's a force field of tall, terrifying women who just sort of like just crowd you. They're just going to get up on you and like, oh, I'm not allowed to stand here anymore. I guess I'll go. Okay, that was Vergecast.

Thank you for listening to us. That's always nice. We never introduced ourselves. I just realized that. Oh, at the end. Yeah, I'm new... We're going to move... We're going to outintroduce ourselves.

Yeah. Outroductions. Yeah, this is, I'm Eli. I'm David. I am Dieter. Yeah. And you can find us on Twitter. He's Pierce David. He's reckless.

I'm back on. Yeah. And this is a very Thursday, 430, streaming on our site. And then we'll have the audio up very shortly after. Thank you for listening. We'll be back this week.