The Vergecast - Fitbit buys Pebble, Windows 10 on ARM, and gadgets aren't dead

Episode Date: December 9, 2016

Nilay, Dieter, Lauren, and Ashley are back! This week on Vergecast, we talk about Fitbit buying Pebble, the status of the gadget universe, and Microsoft bringing Windows desktop apps to mobile ARM processors. Lots of tech, lots of jokes, here we go. 01:34 - Fitbit / Pebble / wearables 18:23 - Gadgets aren’t dead 33:10 - Windows / ARM 53:23 - Lightning round (Westworld spoilers 53:23–55:10) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome to Vergecast, the flagship podcast of verge.com. It's been a long time since I've said that, like three weeks? Three weeks. One week? How many weeks, Ashley? It's been three weeks. Anyway, I'm Nealai, The Enterscheafety of the Verge. Ashley, Carman is here, Ashley.

Hi. Dieter Bone is here. Hello. Lauren Good is here. Hello. That was my best question of Nealai. You've been practicing our Nealai hello's, and we just can't nail it. Yeah.

Hello. It's a mix. That was too friendly. Anyway, you got to. inspire and then terrorize. Hello. All in one salutation. Anyhow, if you've been paying attention, you know that this podcast is brought to you by a fake vodka called Cizzer Vodka, which inspires you to cut through the night.

Dieter and I were in New Orleans last week, and I think we spent, I don't know, half a day just making Cizzer Vodka jokes as we walked around time. It's pretty good. Yeah, I don't remember any of them. No, because we were. Related, we were in New Orleans. It was a good day. Anyway, tons and tons of Gatchenies. Paul, by the way, is on vacation this week.

And then, you know, it's going to be, it's a holiday season here. So it's going to be rotating cast of characters the next few weeks. But anyway, just an enormous amount of news this week. So we should get right into it. Just to give you a little, everybody, a little preview. Microsoft announced a bunch of wild new things that Windows can do, primarily based around running on armchips now, which is great. And then there's, like, sad news that Ashley managed to turn into happy news,

which I think is good. I'm just the resident optimist. Let's start there. So Fitbit announced that it was buying Pebble, which is the happy way of saying pebble is dead. Motorola or Moto, Lenovo Moto, decided that smartwatches are over for it. Lauren, you're kind of like our wearable expert. You want to tell us what's going on with things that you wear in your wrist? I'm obsessed with wearables.

Yeah. Quite honestly. I mean, is this just like we all knew it was not a good idea and now it's sort of spiraling down the drain? Well, we've been through this before. There were the very, very early smart watches, like Microsoft made one years ago, right? And then it never really worked out. And then when mobile became a real thing, smartphones became a real thing, a bunch of companies said, okay, let's try to do this sort of wireless, Wi-Fi connected.

I shouldn't say Wi-Fi connected because it wasn't Wi-Fi, this type of connected wristwatch, right? And there are primarily two categories. They're the basic activity trackers, the FitBits of the World, Jawbone. which also isn't doing very well. And then there are smart watches, which generally have shorter battery life, but they serve as a platform for third-party apps, right? So it's very,

it's still kind of like segmented like that. So you would Fitbit, right, which is the market leader in wearables by far, who primarily makes basic activity trackers buying Pebble a smart watch company. And I will say, I believe Fitbit's business model is that their shit falls apart and you have to buy a new one.

And it's ugly. Yeah, that part too. Oh, you meant like the physical product falls apart. My wife has gone through. It's like literally like a process that we go through as a family now where she buys a new one and then the little chargey thing breaks. What kind does she buy? The charge HR or whatever that's called now. Yeah.

And then the little charger breaks and then she goes through about a month where she has a piece of tape on the charger because it's like a magnetic clipie charger, but the piece on the bracelet breaks so it doesn't connect. So then she tapes the charger around it. And that's about a month of our lives where she complains about using masking tape. And I say things like, just buy a new one. And that's like a conversation we have every day for a month. And then she buys a new one. That's why Fitbit's going to be the last one standing. And then our loop reset.

Yeah, because everyone's doing that. But how long does she actually, she wears it for a year or so before it breaks? Like, how does she wear it for before breaks? I would say it's a period between six months to a year before breaks. Like some of them go faster. It's not very good. But I know, like, I am confident that Fitbit will continue to succeed because we just keep buying. Like, A, they've made a particular kind of crack for healthy people, which is numbers, like, how active you are.

And she competes. You know, she's just like, but then, like, it breaks. So then, like, then there's withdrawal and we have to buy a new one. It's a great business model for Fitbit. Yeah. Yeah. And they've also, to top that off, they've also thrown a bunch of new models out there this year. they have like four new fitbits and adding to the three that they were selling previously, you know,

so they already have, they have more than half a dozen models on the market. So it's a very, like, throw out at the wall and see what sticks kind of approach. So consumers like go to the store, they go online and they're like, oh, I don't know. You know, the question doesn't become, should I get a Fitbit for some people becomes, well, should I get the Blaze or the Flex or the Charge or the, you know, and so it's like that classic sort of strategy. But the thing is, too, is like, is every Fitbit named after a character from American Gladiators? Yeah, the blaze. The blaze, right?

That's awesome. I never thought about that before. The blaze is selling surprisingly well. Yeah, it does really well with the javelin challenge. I don't think it's very good-looking. No, it's really not. Wait, hold on, I'm just looking up a list of American gladiators. Oh, I thought you're going to say, hold on.

I'm looking up a list of Fitbits. It's apparently the same. But yeah, so wearables in general, like they're having this day of reckoning, right? It's happening. And it's happening now. and we've sort of been saying this for a while. It's hard for some people to understand what the real value of wearables are, unless they're like really dedicated fitness tracking devices or they're really cool smart watches.

Some IDC just put out some numbers earlier this week that said that Apple Watch sales, according to their, you know, their estimates were down 71% year over year. And then Apple came out a day later and said, no, we just had the best holiday week ever. And, you know, Pebble was struggling financially. They couldn't get their products out the door. We have no idea what's going on with job. We have some idea what's going on with jawbone. But they've sort of like faded away.

And so, yeah, I mean, and then a bunch of the Android Wear watchmakers like Huawei, LG, and Motorola have decided not to make smart watches this fall, which is kind of a big deal. We were waiting for those. And Dieter's like chomping at the bit here. Blaze was played by Sherry Pendleton. She was on American Gladeeator from 89 to 93. I have the list open too. There's also laser, zap, hawk, turbo, nitro, dynamite. Dieter, you have to say the word Fitbit.

Oh, I'm sorry. There's a Fitbit saber. The Fitbitzap, Fitbit Hawk. Fitbit Turbo, I guarantee you will come out. Yep. Fitbit ice for cold weather activities. Fitbit Nitro sounds illegal. Fitbit Gemini for.

adult dancers. Fitbit diesel. Is that what you said? Fitbit diesel is going to be like a giant huge Fitbit with like a big battery in it and you can vape off of it. Fitbit diesel would be diesel?

I'm sorry. You could vape off of it. The adult dancer one would definitely be Fitbit lace. Or Fitbit electric. There's a lot. All I'm saying is there's a lot. Fitbit vibal would have been good too. Anyway, Fitbit, if you're listening,

there are many ways to compensate us for these ideas. Or American gladiators. Okay, so Moto gave up on Androidware. Yeah. Nobody else, every other manufacturer's already given up on Android wear. They've delayed its release so far as I could tell to someday, whatever. Microsoft gave up in the band.

Microsoft gave up in the band. It's no longer selling it. I guess it's the story of Pebble is they ran out of money? The story is that Pebble had been struggling for the past year or so. and this deal was the best deal. I'm really saddled the core, actually. The Pebble core, the little Spotify thing. I was kind of excited for that.

Pebble is definitely what everyone in our office wears. I see Pebble more than anything else, which is why it hurts so bad that they went to Fitbit. I know, but also we are not like, we're like the small sort of technocratic sample of the universe too. But the big question is, is the story that all smart watches are dead, or is the story that all smart watches except the Apple Watch are dead?

Like it comes down to like do you believe Tim Cook when he tells you that sales are fine? I actually don't know if you have to. Like Apple can continue to sell, I don't know, 100,000 Apple watches a year for eternity and it will like it won't, it'll be fine. Like they can afford to do that, right? I mean, what I go ahead, Neely. Oh, I was going to say, I mean, they cut the price of the thing. So it's a lot cheaper now. It starts at 269.

And the platform is a lot better. So as a product, all they have, it's. I mean, it's still just an accessory to your iPhone. So all they have to do is convert some number of iPhone owners into Apple Watch owners, and they have a way bigger business than any other platform. Right? It's, and there's obviously like billions of iPhones in the world. So Apple's opportunity is so different than everybody else's opportunity, just because if they convert 2% of iPhone owners, they have millions of sales.

And so that's like, that's the way to think about it. in a way that Google can't address the Android installed base the way that Apple can address the number of iPhone owners. But that said, I did it again. I put on the Apple Watch. I wore it diligently for two months. And then the battery died and never thought about it again. You didn't wear a dead one for a while? I wore a dead one for a while.

Yeah. It's fun to wear a dead Apple Watch. But the thing that have that, so you're totally right in that as long as they sell a small percentage of watches to. iPhone users and they're doing okay for the wearables market. But they're really the last holdout right now when it comes to wearable makers that are relegated to one platform, which is iOS, right? I mean, Garmin comes up there every, you know, every quarter on IDC's lists and they're still selling pretty well and those work across multiple platforms. Fippit works across multiple platforms. Microsoft Band did. There's even Android Wear app for iOS, although it's incredibly limited.

It just means like, hey, you can technically have an Android wear watch and use iOS. So like basically, and maybe some of the Samsung wearables, I'm trying to remember if the last band, the last Samsung band only worked with Samsung. That's quite possible. But for the most part, Apple's really only hold out when it comes to these things. And so even they think about this holiday season when people are saying, oh, should I buy someone in my life a wearable? Do you think they're going to buy them something that, I mean, unless that person has expressly

said, I love my iPhone and I want an Apple watch. you're likely not going to want to get something that only works with an operating system. Fitbit Cyclone. Yes. That's a good one. Sorry. No, I like that you're doing this because I could get so in the weeds on this stuff for like ever and just keep making jokes. Please lighten my mood these days of wearable market.

Lauren, I don't know if people think about platforms as much as we do, right? I think if you have an iPhone, you know, and people are like, oh, that person loves their iPhone, Maybe they do say I want an Apple Watch Or somebody just goes into the Apple Store And buys the thing that's in front of them Yeah But I think it comes down It's like there's two winners, right?

There's Apple that's going to own This sort of big Apple Watch size space And then there's Fitbit that's going to own Activity. I think people say I want a Fitbit Like I think that Yeah They've won that part of the battle People actively say I want a Fitbit

I mean in two years we're talking about Like Apple Watch Fitbit and Garmin, right? Because, like, I don't think Fitbit is going to go up into Garmin's zone of its, like, hardcore activity stuff. They could. But, yeah. They kind of tried to you with the surge.

But, yeah. And I don't think Garmin is going to be able to manage to, like, what they've only, like, made little baby steps to, like, try and become, like, something for everybody. Right. The bait. Well, although the wire cutter consistently votes their vivo after their vivo smart, some of the best activities. But also, but, yes.

That's one of those wire cutter things where you, like, you go and you buy the one on the wire cutter that they say is the best. And you, like, give it to somebody as a gift. And they're like, oh, what is this? because they don't know, right? Like you... They're like the Garminvivo act. Thank you so much.

This is great. Is this like a Fitbit? They're like, the Wirecutter said it was the best one. And they're like, I'm not what I wanted at all. They're like, can I exchange this for a Fitbit at Best Buy? Yeah.

No disrespect. I love the Wirecotter and I buy almost everything that I need to buy for my home through it. But sometimes they're like, buy this really weird thing. You know, I'm just going to stick with what everybody else has. That's going to be fine. I also feel like, though, this year we've seen a lot of fashion brands come out with their own branded wearables.

Fossilers everywhere. Yeah, and I was going to say like that feels, that is inherently different from Fitbit and Apple Watch. That is more like Pebble's market where Pebble I felt like was a little bit more fashionable. That's why I liked it. But now it's like Kate Spade, Armani, different people like. like that, if you love Kate Spade's look, the obvious choice is to go to Kate Spade and buy Kate's smartwatch. But then you end up with like a weird.

But the people who buy that watch don't care. Although FitBid did have a Torrey Birch line that they said sold really well. Yeah, like the brand is like a partner with. Yeah. Yeah. Nicola, who was on the show a bunch, she had, she brought a pebble. She's like, that's the one I like the best. It's one that looks the best.

It looks great. Yeah. She got the time round. The time round. Yeah. It's like the only. only one they really designed for women. I mean, honestly.

So, yeah. Yeah, all the other ones, and the other ones never looked great. That one actually, I thought, looked really cool. So what happens now? So they're laying off all the hardware people, right? And the software team is going to Fitbit, and they're going to, it's going to be the Fitbit operating system? What's the plan? So according to a report in Bloomberg, about 40% of the employees at Pebble

were offered jobs at Fitbit, and you are correct. It is primarily in the software engineering team. Fitbit just acquired the platform. And as of right now, we don't know exactly what, the plan is for how FIPPIT is either going to continue to support the platform or integrate it in some way. My best guess would be that, you know, FIPPIT sort of dipped its toe into SmartWatch territory with the Blaze because it had this, you know, color, touchscreen display, and it ran a couple apps. I mean, most notably FIPPIT's own app called FitStar that they had acquired. But it

wasn't really a platform for apps, right? So my best guess is that a FIPIT is going to get deeper into the smart watch market, they're going to take this technology and possibly use some of it to build a platform that outside developers actually want to build stuff for that can run on a Fitbit or some type of fragment of an app that will run in a Fitbit. Yeah, I think the question is, it's the same Apple question. I think the thing that doomed Pebble ultimately is Apple just didn't give them all the hooks into the OS that they needed. Like you couldn't respond to an I message from a Pebble, but you can definitely do that

from an Apple watch. And the question to me is, can any... smartwatch survive if they can't provide a complete extension of the phone experience, or do they all have to become replacements for your phone because Apple won't let them in the door? And I just, I don't know the answer to that question at all. I think that's right on. Yeah, because I couldn't text from my pebble. Yeah, which is like that, that, that, that, I don't use my pebble anymore. It's all over. It's because of me that they got bought. So you don't have, you don't have one on. I don't have one on. Dieter, do you have a smart watch on? Yes. What do you

have on? I have a, I have a, Moto 360, which they're not making these anymore. And it's the... I mean, everybody makes fun of it because it has the flat tire display. I don't care. It's not a million inches thick.

Like every other Android wear watch. And that's like, it's not a giant watch. And like the Gear S3 also massive. Yeah. Right? Like we're not even talking about Samsung smart watch. Which fine.

I don't know. I don't care. I guess I should more. But like they're putting cellular radios in this shit now. Like, like, er, like, no, like, the thing that's really frustrating, because like, if Pebble had access to, like, more money and, like, more engineering resources and actually, like, a bigger, like, supply chain of cheaper parts and, like, the platform, like, if they had all of these things that

they were never going to get, they had the right philosophy about what a smart watch should be. They were focused on, you know, the right things. They knew that they weren't going to, like, take over fitness, but they had just enough to make you happy. They focused on battery life. they focused on usability. The design of the OS was, of the new OS was by Etai, who was at WebOS, and then he went to Pebble, and now he's over at Intel.

And it was like really smart. Like they had all the right ideas. They had a really small, dedicated community that loved them. And they had zero chance of success. I mean, I'm just going to say it. Sounds a lot like Palm to me. Yeah. I knew that's where you were going.

How did you possibly know that? Yeah. Lauren, are you wearing a smart watch? I'm not wearing a smart watch right now. I actually have not worn a smart watch since like election day. You know what I don't want anymore? I just so depressed. Information about what happens in the world.

The smart watch is gone. Are you wearing a tracker? I'm actually not at the moment. I very briefly use the Nike Apple Watch. Yeah. Which I have on loan and is exactly like the Apple Watch series too, but with some Nike stuff and some Nike colors. So you're zero quant.

right now. I'm zero. Yeah. No quantification whatsoever. I've gone back to just using Strava on my phone right now. Oh, okay. Well, that counts. I'm not, you're not, you're not, you're not an actual non-quant. You're like something else. I just don't know why. I just haven't in a while, but um, this is probably the longest I've gone about a month and really in years without wearing it without wearing a tracker. But, but yeah, I mean, I guess this brings up the bigger question as to whether or not, not just this category, but this idea of gadgetry and gadgets in general are, are dead. as some people have. Oh, yeah.

So this is good. That was really smooth. That was really good. So Farhad, Manju, who is the Times, who we love and know he's been on this show. I'm actually going on his show tomorrow to argue with him about this. Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah. It's me and Joanna Stern.

And we've demanded that he rename his show from the Farhod & Jay Show, or the Jay and Farhad show, to the Joanna Nielan. We'll see if this condition is accepted. But anyway, Farhod's a good guy. He wrote a piece, pegged. to the pebble news, basically, saying gadgets are over. Like, this was supposed to be a new category that supported all kinds of new companies. It fizzled out. Basically, everything's a smartphone now.

And this moment of gadgetry has passed. Ashley Carman took exception to this. I thought you wrote a great piece saying gadgets aren't it. You want to walk us through it? Yeah. So Farhad's piece was interesting. There was a couple core problems, not to hate on Farhad. But I'm just going to say

So he was basically bringing up this point that Pebble being acquired that is evidence as well as other companies like 3D robotics not doing well These companies aren't doing well Therefore gadgets are dead Which just like that logic doesn't make sense He also called out Nest

And Tony Fidel from Nest has been raging on Twitter Oh my God all day which is amazing Nest people are not happy In general or no It's either too long or too cold in their house they can't figure it out. They're so angry about the temperature they built an entire freaking company

and all these smart algorithms and somebody please just fix the temperature in this room and all of a sudden dust came out of me. I got a sweater, I put it on, I'm too hot, screw this. I have to build a whole new company to fix it. It's like the title of Tony Fidel's memoir. I was like, I got a sweater.

It's like, just buy a blanket. Ashley, keep coming. I'm sorry. So, yeah, so he says these things And then I'm saying that just doesn't make any sense. Also, what even is a gadget? If you're saying gadgets are dead, let's define what a gadget is. And in his mind, a gadget was like the Game Boy or a Walkman or like these really landmark gadgets.

It's a little electronics. Like the iPod or something. Yeah, iPod, et cetera. And I'm saying, okay, well, now everything is technically connected. So at this point, how can you say gadgets are dead? Is a dishwasher a gadget? Is a connected light bulb a gadget? what is a gadget, first of all, and then basically saying after we define what a gadget is,

that there are tons of gadgets in the world and that people with hobbies and interest and special needs are going to continue to buy gadgets if you needed a built-in market. So yeah, I referenced a weed garden, a garden for your house that helps you grow weed, which is not for everyone. But it could be. But, you know, people smoke weed. It's legal in a lot of places here. So someone out there wants to grow it.

Let's talk about more about this weed garden. You should write a follow-up to that, that Ganges is not dead. Ganges is real alive. Ganges are not dead. Gondja is forever. Ashley Garvin's story. Wow, can't wait to dedicate my life to this.

Yeah, it's going to be great. Ashley, you have a new bee. We're changing the whole site. The intersection of technology, culture, and wheat. Just straight up weed. But I think, so it's weird because I think this is super cyclical on almost a yearly basis that the end of the year comes, we like stare into the void of holiday sales. CES looms in the distance. And everybody writes about tech gets real sad in a variety of ways.

And they're like, nothing is exciting anymore. And I just, I don't know, I don't buy it. Dieter, Lauren. I just think that people that write these articles just don't want to go to CES and the editor say, no, you have to go. like, oh yeah, I can prove to you that it won't matter. And then they write these articles. But it's not going to matter. It's not why you go, right? I mean, it, nothing happens there, but you get to see everybody. That's important. You get to look at all the stuff. That's important. I mean, Walt is not going for the first time in 25 years. He informed me yesterday because he's like,

nothing ever gets announced there except for HDTVs. And I just bought one. So I'm good. Walt was like, I'm not going to go shopping while I'm there. So, you know. Yeah. The way I look at it is we go there to just like see that, basically see what they put a chip in this year, right? And where design thinking has gone. So like this weed garden is it connects to your phone. It has a bunch of sensors that are cheap now because of smartphones.

There's an app that lets you monitor all the sensors because smartphones exist. So it's the ancillary things that are happening away from the phone. Exactly. But they're never going to grow into a phone themselves. Yeah, your phone cannot grow weed for you. Yeah. I have a sort of a philosophical theory about the whole gadget thing, which is, in my opinion, 2016 was the year that people in general were just way more interesting and way more interesting

subjects than gadgets or technology and that the companies that haven't really done well this year or put out products that weren't received well have essentially lost touch with what people actually wanted. And they have forgotten somewhere along the way that these things are supposed to serve people and do things for people and make people better. And they haven't. Yeah. I mean, that's why sometimes that's, yeah.

I think that's why, like, when I'm saying people with interests, like, this is going to help them do what they love to do. It will make them happier. And so, yeah, I totally see where you're coming from with that. Yeah, I mean, I think the, I mean, how many times in the show we talked about ports in the MacBook and headphone jacks on phones? Like, those are examples of the tech industry saying, here's the future as we've decided. it will be and people saying this isn't how we use your stuff at all and like there's a huge

disc just in that there's like a massive disconnect by the way for all the people who tweeted me about whether I'm going to write an angry article what the galaxy sate not having a head phone track we got to talk about that yeah yeah it's it's half written it's in the browser it's here it's in front of me I need to finish it it's just as stupid I promise you and maybe even worse but it's maybe worse but it's also better because they're going to switch to USBC which despite still being a, you know, a dangerous fiasco when you try and buy stuff off of Amazon or anywhere else, is, you know,

more of a standard for audio than lightning. And at least you can wirelessly charge. Their phone. Yeah. Yeah. What I really want to do is like stick my phone to the back of an airline. I mean, it's not the best, but it's better than Apple.

Radiating power magnets in the back of every airline seat. It means you can press my phone up against it. You can charge them in the car. And listen at the same time with wireless charging. That's what I'm saying, but you need a wireless charging pad. Yeah. Well, yeah. So you just install that.

I mean, it's not convenient, no. Anyway, I promise I'll write that. I'll finish it. But I think the bigger point about gadgets in general, and I think it has a lot to with what Lauren is saying, which is kind of like the, that's the mass market success negative side of what Ashley is saying, which is the big companies don't know what big categories exist for them. So they're making bets.

We just spent all this time talking about wearables, which everybody thought was the big bet. It was the next thing. We're going to put computers on our faces and wrists and everywhere. And people, for the most part, have rejected the idea of wearing their computers so far. But then there's a flip side, which is, hey, I like doing something. Can you make it easier and automate it in some way? I like making tortillas, for example.

Right. Or like the Garmin user. You know, that person who's like, I'm going to go out and run several miles or go on a hike or do a triathlon this weekend, they need that dedicated thing. And that is that hobbyist sort of mentality that Ashley is referring to in her piece. And like, that's great. And there are gadgets that serve that. All the suede gadgets that came out like a year and a half ago, like they're everywhere now. And it's just like a standard thing that people go by.

And for a while, that was like a new thing. And that's like definitely like, I want to learn how to cook in this weird way. Yeah. It's a hobby. Yeah. I mean, the other issue, too, that I was trying to deal with with this piece was, like, Farhad was basically saying that because these companies didn't become the next apple, these things failed. Right. And I'm like, okay, maybe a gadget company that solely does gadgets, this one weed garden, isn't going to be the next apple.

It's just not. So then it's like, how do you qualify success? I got to tell you, there's a lot of stone guys who started their weed company who are like, we're going to be the next apple. I'm here to tell you all you're not going to be the next apple. Yeah, they should start with LSD. Yeah. But no, but then the GoPro example that Farhad brought up, I think that goes back to this idea of like not actually understanding what people do, which is like sort of this

assumption that this tiny little action camera is going to be useful or interesting to everybody. When like in reality, most of our lives are like, we just do a lot of mundane everyday stuff. And most people don't actually need to put a little camera on their body or on their bike or whatever it is, right? It's like, I don't know, record their commutes. Like, it's just, like, not what people do.

Well, Anne Farhad said that he wanted a GoPro, but instead bought a third party, or off-brand one, from China. Yeah. And basically his headline was just wrong. He should have just said a lot of gadget companies are failing. Yeah.

He shouldn't have said gadgets are dead. Mm-hmm. I think his headline was, like, behold the gadget apocalypse. Yeah, I'm like, dude, it's not happening. Well, it's happened. But, like, it is. happening in one specific way which is a lot of companies built on what we thought

were going to be big new categories have collapsed because those categories people got tired of them or they bought one thing and realized they didn't need another thing like you don't the here's how I here's how I see it the smartphone especially Apple smartphones are different from computers because the computer was the digital hub and you're gonna like attach a bunch of weird crap to it by USB and do stuff And the number of things that you can attach to an iPhone to do stuff with, whether it's wirelessly or via wire or a little lens over it, you know, it's not as broad. And if something that attaches to the iPhone in some way become successful as a third party, in order to like really get big, they have to like have a deep integration to the OS in a way that Apple won't let them.

And that or Apple will just like jump into the category and push you out. So like that is actually a little bit the story of GoPro. I know it's a separate thing and, you know, it records on its own, its own kind of gadget. But it eventually was like going to get superseded. It's definitely the story of pebble, right? And so we like the gadgets that are happening now that are like interesting and like have a chance need to make sure that they don't become, I don't know, beholden, I guess, like a vassal of basically the iPhone or, you know, Android phones because there's so many of them so different, you know, have no idea how they're, you know, if it's going to work. with all of them. And there's a long list of it. Being a, being a satellite device to a phone is a riskier game than being a satellite device to a computer was. Yeah, especially because you generally couldn't

take the computer with you everywhere that you went. Right, right. So the phone is already more useful, but the phone is already more useful to you everywhere you go. But all the gadget categories that we think are really interesting are ones that have nothing to do with your phone. So voice assistant speakers are really interesting. Virtually. nothing to do with your phone. Ashley brought up Wi-Fi routers. Dan just published his Google Wi-Fi review. He says he thinks it's the one to buy.

I am continually shocked by the fact that we can't publish enough stuff on Wi-Fi routers. Yeah. I don't understand it. Like, I don't read router reviews, but all the rest do you do, and you read the hell out of them. I mean, I think there's just a long list of that. Drones have virtually nothing to do with your phone, except some of them require you to plug in them in as a screen. For a display, yeah.

But the newest GoPro, I'm sorry, the newest Phantom Pro is going to come with its first controller with the screen built in. So it's just the really interesting categories are changing in ways that have virtually nothing to do with phones. And I think that's actually like the danger for an Apple, right? If you have a limited amount of money to spend a year in gadgets and you're like, my phone is good enough, maybe this one thing is annoying me. There's all this other stuff to buy that has nothing to do with my phone. Maybe your money's going to go there. And I think that's like the core of what Farhad is talking about from kind of the negative side, which is, here are all these ideas and none of them panned out. And they didn't turn into big companies that rivaled Apple for your money.

And what we're saying is, but there are so many other ideas and some of them are working out. Also, Wi-Fi writers are great. All right, I need to read this ad, and then we should talk about Microsoft and Arm. This episode of Virtress is brought to you by Lenovo. The cloud sounds magical, but it is just data stored on servers. God damn it. It's estimated the cloud holds four xabytes of data equal with storage capacity of 6 million average laptops. By 2020, experts expect the cloud to hold 40 zetabytes of data or the storage equivalent

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Super fast. Anyway, Deeter, huge arm Windows news. You want to walk us through it? So Windows has demoed running full-on desktop-style Windows apps through software emulation on ARM processors. I think it was at Qualcomm 820 or 835. 835 is the one that we're hoping. Yeah, okay, 835.

That's like the big hot new one. Anyway, to be clear, we all understand that Windows 10 or Windows 8 at least already ran on Arm and the Surface RT and the Windows Store apps. the Metro apps, the Windows Store experience apps, the whatever the hell that we're supposed to call them now apps. Modern. No, I don't think they're modern anymore. I think it was, it was Metro, then modern,

then like something, and then now it's like Windows Store. Anyway, they're supposed to be able to run on both Arm and Intel on X86. But nobody wanted those computers. And so now they have got actual proper, quote unquote, proper Windows apps like Photoshop running on ARM. And, you know, from their demo, which take with the grain of salt, seem fine, the big question is like when they actually release a computer using an arm chip, will that emulation actually be good or not?

Which, I don't know. We'll see. But if it is, it's potentially exciting because arm chips are like way more interesting right now than Intel X86 chips. My general feeling is that the year over year improvement of X86 chips isn't really following more as long as anymore. It's getting smaller and smaller, at least as we've seen them come out of Intel. So like the brand new KV Lake chips, everybody's been waiting for, and it's real mad that the new MacBook Pros don't run on them. We've been looking at the new Windows devices that do run on them, and they're like, you know, a little faster.

But they're not like, holy crap faster. They're not like, what came before Skylake? Silver like Broad Broadway oh yeah Broadwell Broadwell right I just the name of a neighborhood in Los Angeles You remember when Broadwell came out and the new MacBook errors like suddenly had like insane good battery life and really good speed like and that it was like a revolution in laptops like that's the last time that intel had a moment like that and everything else since then has felt pretty small and iterative but on the arm side I mean shit has been getting faster like crazy like the the iPad Pro has a processor that is probably, I don't know, the exact number, it's more powerful than the processor in my actual, like, little skinny MacBook. Yeah.

Which is a core M, which is Intel core M. Right. So if that trend continues, like what our conception of Windows on arm computers is, is like the Surface RT, and it was bad. It was like not enough software, and it was kind of slow. We didn't feel good about it. But if arm processors can catch up or surpass or get into, same realm as fast enough as like x86 processors, there ends up being a wide swath of benefits

that you can't get from Intel because Intel never really figured out mobile in a big way. So you get theoretically probably better battery life and you get way easier cellular connectivity and you have a much higher ceiling for growth of improvement in the future if the trends of like year over year improvements in processor speed continues. So I've been going a while. I'm running out of steam here. Somebody helped me out. I'm kind of excited. I was going to say, I think I have like more questions than statements.

Okay. The first is, first off, like, how does the emulation actually work? And then second of off, second of off, does that doesn't even make sense? Second of all. Second of all. Second of off. Hey, you're a non-quant right now. You live free.

You're not bound by numbers. No number system can contain you. Do whatever you want. The number line is. The prism. Reboot. So how does the emulation work is the first thing? And second of all, like, how much better is this going to be than something like, say, the yoga

book? Because it's funny when I reviewed the Lenovo yoga book, which is this tiny little amazing convertible laptop that has this futuristic keyboard. And it comes in both an Android version and a Windows 10 version. The Windows 10 version on, which is an atom chip, which is a mobile chip, was crap. And someone in the PC industry. reached out to me after that review and actually said, you know how similar this is to the surface RT, right? The whole idea, the form factor, how small and thin it is, but it's also running on a

mobile chip, right? So, like, I'm just super curious to see, like, how the emulation works and how much better this actually is. And when you say how it works, do you mean, like, the actual technical details of, like, what do they do with the emulator in the software to make the software, like, do the thing? Like, what does that mean? Like, for lay people. What does that even mean? I mean, I can give you the super lay thing. I don't know the technical details way deep down, but like software is designed to run on a certain kind of processor. And if it's going to run a different kind of processor, there needs to be a software layer in between that says,

hey, I know you think you're running an Intel, but you're actually an arm, so I'm going to act like Intel for you and be a go-between. Yeah. And what that does is it slows everything down. Yeah, but it used to slow down way more. Right. And now, like, they've gotten better at it.

The dynamic recompile, like, that part of computer science has been exhilarating for some time. Right, right. There's like, there's just a lot of, Microsoft behind it. Because Microsoft's entire server stack is about creating environments. This is like way deep in the weeds. But like there's just a lot of Microsoft computer science.

It's about extracting you the software away from it, the chip. And like they can do it now. Yep. And they've been wanting to do it for a long time. I think to me the question, Deider, you brought up Apple. It's like Apple's armchips are way faster. everybody else's, but they're not doing this. Right.

Which is bonkers, right? Yeah. I mean, but it is a preview of a move that Apple could make, right? We're going to dynamically recompile all of our X86 stuff. Right. But the big question, like, I do, I find it incredibly fascinating that Microsoft, it seems, unless Apple, like, tomorrow's like, yeah, that's too, is beating Apple to the punch on this, because we're all sort of assuming they're going to do it with a Mac at some point.

But Microsoft's beating the punch, which is hilarious. for me. I'm not sure why, but I just, I can't get over it because we all just been waiting for Apple to do it. And Microsoft's like,

oh yeah, we're doing it. So that's actually my big question. Can Apple, does Apple have the software chops that you were just talking about that Microsoft has

in order to pull it off as well as Microsoft has? I mean, they've done it before. And so what you're saying they would pull off. When they did it before, when they switched to X86, there was like,

there was a period where you'd run that stuff in emulation. I figure what the mode was called. Bluebox. It was the blue box. It was the blue box. Whatever. It was not good.

It was fun. Just be clear. What you're wondering if Apple can pull off is actually having a laptop form factor, but it's running. It's running one of their A series chips. Like they would take. It's running the A series chip. They could, I mean, they can do the A9x or the A10X. They can do that hardware.

I'm sure they have that hardware right now. Like, I'm sure they have this MacBook with a arm processor in it and Mac OS 10 running, MacOS running on it very nice and smooth and bug-free. and it feels and actually is way faster than my current computer. But the question is, is the emulation layer that allows apps that weren't compiled for this processor going to be as good on Apple as we assume it could be on Microsoft? Like it all comes down to like,

are these emulated apps, apps running on the emulation layer, going to be as good as you claim? Is it going to be a shitty experience? So I think it's unfair to conflate what Apple might do with what Microsoft is doing because Apple controls its ecosystem. They have their own language, right? They have Swift, right?

Yeah, sure. That's the day when they say, everything has to be written in Swift, and it can go everywhere and we'll handle it for you. Microsoft has a whole other suite of problems. The two questions... Didn't Microsoft do that sort of with universal apps when they started with...

The whole point of this is Photoshop is not a universal app. It's a Wynn-32 app designed for Intel processors, and they're building a layer that slides in under it and lets it run an arm. So how much slowdown? is that layer going to cause is Deeter's big question. My questions are a little bit different. One, if that layer isn't slow,

what incentive does any developer have to make an app for Microsoft's new world ever because then they get the new computers and the old computers, which Microsoft is historically bad at moving its legacy systems forward? So this could create a big problem there. Oh, no, you'll want to make it the new universal apps

because they'll run on phones. But they don't sell it. And I think this is way more, way more important, is like, how bad did Intel blow it? Like, this is the end of Intel. Yeah. Microsoft is saying, well, one of the reasons we wanted to do this is because these computers will now have integrated cellular connectivity. And better battery life. And Intel, like, you know, two months ago is like, we put a modem in the iPhone, right?

Like, that was their big win, and they can't carry that win over to what Microsoft wants to do because they don't have. have the performance in on the battery life. Yeah. You just went on a whole long thing about how the newest Intel X86 chips are not nearly as good. Like, I think Intel's facing a crisis moment. If the next generation, I, uh,

and the responses screwing around with AR and drones and like trying to, NBR. Yeah. Like that's, that's where they're at right now. Dan learned a thing about the Surface Pro 4. He's like, I love this.

Now Microsoft can make the one I actually want with an arm chip in it. Um, the whole phones thing, it's a little bit of a joke. But if Microsoft can make a phone that you plug into a display and then it can just run Photoshop, that's kind of neat, right? Like, Apple is not going to let you do that. It's just where what happened to Intel in this last two years? It feels like Intel has dropped the ball so hard that our MacBooks are bad.

Our Windows laptops are compromised in some way. Microsoft is moving away and you're sitting there dreaming about your MacBook with a different chip in it and a software compatibility layer. And for anybody that says CES is going to be super boring, like Intel has the keynote. Like they're going to have to get on stage in this new world and like talk about how they're cool and work. Like they've done it now for two years in big ways and like haven't seen a bunch of that stuff really land. Like are you using curie modules? Oh my God. Well, right?

I mean, in fairness to Intel, that's sort of what happens when you're a chipmaker and you're relying on your OEM saying, yes, we will use this. Right. as opposed to like a Sony getting up there and showing something off. And then they're directly responsible for shipping that in that time frame. On the other hand, Qualcomm did the most insane CES keynote of all time, the Bourne Mobile keynote with Big Bird and, you know, Bad Star Trek movie actress and Archbishop Desmond Tutu on stage. I'm not, we're just going to talk about that forever.

These are all true facts that I'm stating right now. Dieter, have you been using Ashley's movie? Ashley's Wheatap. That's actually a really good name for Ashley's Weedap. What was the band? Who was the band with the guy? Well, there's two bands. It was Maroon 5 was on stage.

There was Maroon 5 was on stage. But they were like playing Sting on the live stream or something. No, it was like it was like, oh god, I don't remember. Anyway, because you were watching Maroon 5. Dito, it was Dito. You all used Dido, but you were hearing Dido. It was very confusing. This sounds weird. Anyway, they are also a shipmaker that is fully dependent. and done other companies say that they'll make their stuff, and they're doing it just fine.

That's true. That's true. So like Intel, like, it's easy to knock Intel for like showing off a bunch of prototypes that never actually make it in a production because that's literally their job is to make prototypes and get everybody else to adopt their chips and create things with them. But maybe they could do a little bit less showing off prototypes on stage and a little bit more showing off prototypes in back rooms because that's pretty obviously what Qualcomm has been doing and Qualcomm's doing just fine. I mean, are arm chips cheaper than Intel chips? It's weird because they're smaller. Yeah.

And that literally depend. Yeah. So like, this is just all. The answer is like yes and no, right? Like they're, they both come in price ranges. But I think dollar for dollar, it's going to be cheaper. But also the performance for performance, it's cheaper. Right.

And also the pricing structure is going to be different because whoever's using the arm If it just makes more affordable. It's essentially licensing it. Windows PCs, then doesn't that make sense? Yeah. I don't know. I don't think Windows PCs can get any cheaper. This one's $4. Here you go.

Please take it. It runs Photoshop. This moment for the entire PC ecosystem is the one where unless Intel gets its game back together, it changes into something else entirely, which is what everyone has always told us is going to happen. Moore's Law is going to run out and tablets become the whole thing. and PCs die and on and on and on. And then I think back to, you know, a month ago when the MacBook Pro came out and everyone was like, I just wanted to have 90 ports and the biggest display

and that love of PCs was still really strong, but it feels like Intel just can't capitalize on it. And that means Apple, Microsoft, Dell, whoever, they can't make exactly the thing that we want. I mean, Deeter and Lauren, you two have been testing Windows laptops nonstop. Have you found the one true Windows laptop? couple, we're getting a couple more today.

I think we determined that the Dell XPS 13 is probably one of the best. It's still the old default. The big question for me and I haven't had the chance to try it as the Specter X368. Oh, yeah, I haven't. That might be the one. But like, I've got the user spin seven. It's not the one. It's a core M problem.

Well, they don't call them core M anymore, which is like the most. That's that, actually, that is the perfect example of Intel's freaking problem. There used to be the core M processor. and then they decided to call it core i. And if you wanted to know if you had a real Intel processor that could actually move things or a not real one, you had to look at like the full code name of the chip. You can see if it had the letter Y5 or I7 anymore. Yeah.

Yeah. So like this is technically a core I5, but it's not. It's a core I5 dash I. It makes gadget blogging really hard. I'm just, I'm just going to say that. I have to go through some serious numbers to figure out which chips are. You know, it's fine. On Apple's spec page, they just listed as a CoreM for the MacBook.

Good. They haven't changed it. They're like, as they should. That's amazing. They don't want to confuse people. It's a 1.3 gigahertz tool core Intel Core M7 processor, which technically doesn't exist. And Dieter, you also reviewed the 910, the Lenovo Yoga 910 recently. Yeah, which has all the right pieces put together badly.

Yeah. And then I reviewed the yoga book, which I like because it's cool and futuristic and it's relatively inexpensive, but it's not going to be your every. everyday computer. Oh, man. I want the yoga book to be a everyday computer. Like that, that device in particular is what I'm waiting for.

Oh, I have an idea. I have an idea. So you talked about Windows and phones before, right? And like we were joking. Because what else can you do? Just to clarify, that was a joke. Because unfortunately they are.

But what if, like Microsoft has its vision for a future and the phone actually doesn't exist. Like the phone, the phone that we know it is now doesn't exist because our crappy smart watches that we're wearing now, they have the cellular radio, right? So we have our smart watches, or excuse me, we have our phone literally on our bodies, on our wrist, and that is your phone module attached to your wrist. And then you're carrying around a tablet-like device, and maybe that's like a surface type thing, or maybe it's like a yoga book type thing or a tiny

little iPad, right? And that is your interface. Are you ready to slap me in the face? Do it. It's an audio show, but I have a video feed and I'm ready for it. the dream you're describing was the dream of one Mr. Palm founder Jeff Hawkins and it's why he created the folio. He told this exact story. Like you're not going to carry a phone run.

You're going to maybe have a display but like your computer is going to be this thing that you like have on your belt. Right. All your devices will just talk to it and it'll have all your stuff on it. Like this is your cell. I'm like gesturing in the camera right now.

This is your cell connection. On your wrist. Yeah, on your wrist. And it can be a relatively low. power consumption device because all you need to support is the cellular radio. You don't even need to display maybe. Maybe you do for some interaction. And then you're carrying around this like cool tablety thing that you can like punch a number into if you have to. Right. But you're basically using it to like commute. And then you get to your office and you plug that arm powered thing in to

your larger monitor and that's your computing experience. Yeah. I think you just described something that will require Bluetooth to work and it's not going to next year. It'll be fine. It'll work next year. Hey, Bluetooth 5 just came out okay. Yeah. I like the vision. It just, I don't like Bluetooth. It's so bad. And then we'll all be wearing little AirPods.

I'm going to read an ad about socks. And then we're going to have a wee lightning round. Have you guys heard about Sock Club? What? No. Sock Club, absolutely the best gift solution. You can purchase a sock of the month subscription for everyone on your list. And they'll receive a pair of quality American-made socks directly.

to their door every month. I'd like to pause here and note that socks are not just for feet. You can put iPods in them. You can put anything in them really. All those iPods, everyone's using. They're just tallow fabric tubes. Anyway, it's a fact.

Anyway, Sock Club offers printable membership certificates, which is an amazing concept. So you can give subscriptions away. You can write customized gift messages. So your loved one remembers you every month when they receive their socks. I love that there's an exclamation point here. You can write whatever you want on the gift message, including I bought you socks.

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I will say the ad copy says lists some people. So you can give it to Ashley. Deeter, Lauren. Our producer, Andrew, if our listeners want to throw Sock Club at Andrew, I'm sure he'll be super excited about that. So anyway, make yourself look like an expert gift giver. And me, you can buy me socks. Yeah, you deserve the socks. You know, every year Becky is one of my Christmas presents gives me sock reboot, where she just buys me all new socks.

So now we got a whole thing. Yeah. She won't let me call it sock reboot because she's like socks are not a computer. Anyway, make yourself look like an expert. gift giver and check all of those hard to shop for people off your shopping with today. Go to sockclub.com. Get 15% off using promo code Verge at checkout. It's a delightful gift experience. Comfy feet every month. Hollow fabric tubes, sock club this holiday season. Honestly, I might get this for my brother. Yeah, right? My brother hates everything in the world,

but he has to wear socks. Yeah. Hollow fabric. It's the worst radio head album. Fitbit Bronco. That's really good. Good. Do you want to talk about Westworld for another hour? Do you guys finish it? Yeah. All right. I did. Thumbs up, thumbs down. Thumbs up on the final two episodes. I know it was like a lot of like, we're explaining everything to you now, but it stopped enjoying the smell of its own farts and became a good show. Ashley, you just finished it. Yeah, I said thumbs up. Thumbs up. So can I offer my one theory about the end that I haven't seen it printed anywhere on the internet? I've just obsessively consumed everything written about the show.

At the end, right before the spoiler alert, turn it off now. If you haven't seen it, is it off? Okay. What if I haven't seen it? Do you have fun? At the end, at the end, he's like, after all, you own the park, or at least most of it. He says it to the man in black, or at least most of it. goes and kills everybody else, implying that the man in black will not own the whole thing.

Oh, I didn't notice that line. Right? He says at least most of it. And then he's like, robot massacre. The man in black had shot in the arm, but he doesn't die. I think that means the man in black, because Ford knows what the man in black wants is for them to come alive, now owns the park full of a live host. Nobody's written that because it's so obvious. No, I don't think that's it. I've seen it everywhere. Because what I've seen is, is the man in black alive or not? And I think the answer is he's definitely alive because...

Yeah. Yeah, that's it. He's definitely alive. Wow, cool burn, Dieter, by the way. Just saying, but is Ford alive? Remember when you went out a 20-minute rant about Microsoft's an arm and I didn't interrupt for you? That was payback.

That was reverse payback for that burn. I'm sorry. Okay. We could keep going on this. We probably shouldn't, though. I'm glad to have a show where I don't need to, like, read 18, like, theories about it to, like, try and understand what the freaking timeline of the show was. 18-C-time Warner.

I'm back. Big hearing yesterday. AC&T's, Randall Stevenson, says net neutrality is bad for the internet. We support net neutrality, but not Title II. I have a thought about this, which is that is the new lie carriers tell. They support net neutrality, but not the rules that make it real. I think the internet's about to change forever. Deidre? I think this is going to go through, and the fight has to move to trying to convince Congress

to put some actual teeth on the writers to accepting it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to give up the whole fight in the first place, but like, yo, it's going to happen. Doom. It's like, you know, in Lord of the Rings when like they hear the stomping in the distance, that's what's happening goes right now. Okay.

Dieter, you had some good tweets on this. Apple launched its iOS single sign on for TV apps. But like nothing works with it. Nothing. Dieter said it doesn't make a sound. What did you say? If you launch single sign on, but like, HBO Comcast or a Comcast, I don't do.

They have nobody. They have, they have, they have direct TV. That's all they have. That's all they have. And mostly apps don't work. Yeah. Like this saddest launch ever. It's just like the perfect sign that like this is like.

And then like the thing I said is like the companies that could just tomorrow decide to turn this on and like enable this feature are the very same companies that are screwing around with your cable bill. and now trying to screw around with the internet. So the Apple TV is actually the perfect example. This is the worst lightning round ever. It's the perfect example of the nexus of the problems of what's happening to the internet in America today. It's the intersection of TV and the internet

and how just, fuckery is breaking stuff. It's breaking what the experience ought to be for no good reason other than fuckery. Yeah, and money. Deeter's exact tweet was If Apple TV launches single sign-on in Comcast, Time Warner, Cable, Charter, Fios, and Optimum are missing. Doesn't make a sound.

Yeah. That was the tweet. Okay. Next thing, round one. Is it going to be Lauren or Ashley? Who knows? Everybody ready. Amazon Go launches, it's a store.

Cashier, freaking mean, sorry, just put the stuff in your bag and walk away. Ashley. I can't wait for someone to try to steal from this. And then all of the security footage leaks of them getting tackled by Amazon employees. Are there employees? Lauren. I guess, yeah. Oh, I thought I was going to.

the next one. Oh, God. I don't have a next one. Some people made some jokes about like, well, what does this mean for shoplifting? Okay, that's all well and fine. I think it's a brilliant idea. I think this is definitely the direction that retail is moving in. However, I do wonder what the automation is going to mean for retail jobs. Okay, Lauren, I do have one more for you. Ready? Apple blames exposure to ambient air for iPhone 6S battery failures. Oh, my God. Okay. I am 90% certain. I have one of these phones. And I say 90% certain because I have not yet. to the store to figure out if my serial number falls within this category. But it's been happening for months. It's usually when I'm out on a run and I'm like tracking the run and I'm feeling really good about myself and I'm like, I got 57% battery lift or whatever the hell is left. And it just dies. And then your music stops suddenly and you can't track anything anymore. And it is honestly super frustrating. And by the way, that's not even that dire of a situation. I mean, I can't even imagine like people who are like, I need to make an emergency phone call or I need maps really badly right now

because I don't know where I am. It's a terrible thing. all we know is what Apple has told us. All we know is that it's a small number of people, which if you're thinking about the whole iPhone universe could actually be a significant number of phones. I will say, though, that Apple, this is not their first rodeo when it comes to this stuff. They had antenna gate.

They had Ben gate. Now they're having battery gate. And they generally try to come out pretty quickly and offer like some technical nugget of what they think is going on, which is, as you might know, different from Samsung's approach with exploding batteries. Yeah. That's kind of my take on it.

Like, it's not a good thing. It pisses me off that my iPhone battery is doing this. It sucks. However. So it's weird that I think that they're blaming hardware problems when it's pretty clearly a software problem. Like, I've had this phone for a year, over a year. It didn't do it before. I upgraded iOS 10 and now it dies.

When did you start doing it? Huh? Mine started doing it about maybe three months ago or so. When did you start doing it? It's weird because I thought it was just like crashy iOS 10. So I didn't even think about it until people started talking. talking about it. So I've definitely noticed for the last month or so, maybe a little bit more. But it was definitely a little bit crashier when I first separated at iOS 10.

Yes. Actually, you're right. For me, it happened after iOS 10. It started happening after iOS 10. I'm thinking, you know what? I'm going to have to go back and look. I just remember testing a What are you going to look at? Do you have a log of every iPhone crash? No, but when I'm testing wearables, if I'm unable to complete a test because the phone died, I mark that. So I can go back and start to look at like when that started happening during my wearables testing and when it really started to piss me off and see if that I see if that may have coincided with iOS 10. That is some real big data analysis, Lauren. I'm impressed. We're nerds. I mean, this is like an unfancy Google dog. It's not like I have like, you know,

sheaf running where I'm like building pivot tables. Have you thought about using an expandable cloud system? That's what I'd add for that. Have you thought about adding a bedroom to your home for this analysis? It'd go over real well. So, well, their explanation is that this exposure to air created a faster degradation of the battery. Like, we all know batteries degraded after some time, but that would have been some, like, I don't know, some serious exposure to air. This is just Apple forcing me to buy an iPhone 7. I feel it in my heart, right?

They're like, you know what? You wrote all that crap about the headphone jack, and now you have to have one. They went through, they figured out every person who ever complained about iPhone 7 on the internet. They're just killing their phones. This is like the fourth time I brought up Becky on this one. Her phone started doing it, and it crashed really hard, and I couldn't recover it. And she actively chose not to get a 7 and bought a 6S plus because she didn't want to deal with the headphone thing. Really?

Yeah, she's like, this is dumb. She looked at the dongle, I showed it to her, and she's like, no. And she just bought the old phone. They were going to give her the new phone for three. Hang on, hang out, hang out, hang out. Just so that everybody's very clear about the thinking here, she will put scotch tape on a charger for her fitness. because she loves the Fitbit. But she will not deal with the dongle for the iPhone.

She won't do it. Okay. We have AT&T next, right? Like, we just get the new phone if you want it. Like, I just get the new phone. But I don't want to deal with it. And I was like, do you just want me to get you the new phone? And she's like, what's the headphone thing?

Because she doesn't pay attention to me after. So she doesn't. It's only my passion. It's only my all-consuming love. Only wrote a hot take about it. No big deal. I only wrote a hot take. It's my defining hot take.

And she's like, no, no, no, no, no. And she's like, point out of success. Anyway, I think that's her show. Is that it? What else is going on? That's enough. Oh, we didn't talk about Apple car. We didn't talk about Samsung's wall-to-wall screen.

That's a, it's Samsung rumor is similar to Apple rumor. It's kind of my lightning around. Anything else? Lauren, you were going to say something. Apple just sent the strongest hint yet that it's working on a self-driving car. Andy Hawkins wrote that for us a few days ago. Oh, right, because they sent a letter. It goes.

driving car thing is like, I feel like, oh, this is exhausting. Yeah. Yeah. Like the makeup and breakup thing. We're making a car. We're not making a car. We're making a car. We want to go out.

You know, when the iPad came out, we were still, I was still at Engadgett. No one else here was at Engadget. I was saying we, but it was just me all by myself and Paul. But when the iPad came out at Engadgett, we wrote a post that tracked the like a decade of of rumors of an Apple tablet and how one image from a patent application had been in every story for 10 years about the Apple tablet, I definitely feel like the Apple car is the same thing. We're just going to talk about it on and off for a decade,

and then they're going to release it, and it's going to be like, yeah, you made an iPhone that rolls. I was going to say, and it'll just be a really big iPhone. It's a really big iPhone. It's so big! Anyhow, I think that is indeed our show. Thank you for listening. I'm going to say something sad now.

This is where I usually plug all the other shows, but one of those shows has come to an end. Ashley, you hosted some episodes of the show. What's Tech with Chris Plant slash Ashley Carman has come to an end? Done. It's over. Because Chris is our culture editor now. So he's got all kinds of things to do.

And he figured out what tech is. Woohoo. Mission accomplished. Anyway, there's a serious finale with Chris and Ross Miller, who's been on the show a million times. It's a really, it's a fun episode. So go listen to that. I obviously host Control, Control, Let Delete, with Walt, which is, we talked about design. We also yelled about headphone jacks on that show this week.

Lauren, you have a podcast. Yeah, it's called Too Embarrass to Ask, and it's available on iTunes, tune-in, Stitcher, Google Play, also Recode's website. And this week, Dan Sefer from The Verge, came on, and we talked all about this smart home. It was super fun. Great. That actually does sound super fun. I've listened to that. And Kara Swisher, on the Recode side, has Recode decode.

Peter Kafka has Recode media, which if you're a media nerd like me, it's one of the best. All of that is on iTunes. Go rate it, review it, give it the five stars. You can contact all of us. I'm at Reckless. Ashley is Ashley R. Carmen. Lauren is Lauren Good. Dieter is at Backalon on Twitter.

We're at Virgin Twitter on Snapchat on Instagram. Instagram, by the way, getting better and better and better on Theverge.com. Anything else? Any other platforms? Allo, peach. I love peach. Just find us. There's still like a significant Google Plus presence happening for The Verge.

We just like auto post Android stories to it. Those people are still there, so they're doing it. But anyway, talk to us. And we'll be back next week with more Vergecast. That's it. Rock and roll. Paul. Paul.

What does everyone say Paul? Paul.