The Vergecast - Ikecheck

Episode Date: February 27, 2015

We've captured lightning in a bottle this week. We somehow managed to record The Vergecast in the brief moments between the Arizonan llamas and the white-gold-blue-black dress debate. It was a moment of clarity, a calm we didn't know we should have savored. Journey back with us to that simpler time, and hear Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, Chris Ziegler, and Sam Sheffer weigh in on the FCC's net neutrality ruling, the price of an Apple Watch, the upcoming Galaxy S 6, and the classic 1992 romantic thriller, The Bodyguard. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode of the Vergecast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the easiest way to create a beautiful website, blog, or online store for you and your ideas. Squarespace features an elegant interface, beautiful templates, and incredible 24-7 customer support. This is me shouting out Ellis Hamburger, because he's going to tweet this at me. Try Squarespace at Squarespace.com and enter OfferCode Verge at checkout to get 10% off. Squarespace. Build it beautiful, Ellis. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Vergecast, where everyone has different ideas what the tagline should be. this piece, on this piece of paper, is what I was going to say?

Piece of paper? Not paper. Verizon, yeah. It's written. It's like a commentary track for Vorge.com. It's been that for a month and you just never read. Well, you should change it every time. Okay. Hi, I'm Eli Patel. I'm Deidrebone.

And I'm Chris Sigler. Hey! I'm here too. I'm Sam Sheper. How's going on. What? Sam. Sam. Sam's still on Flecks to A man. Got his big policy win under his belt?

Yeah. We won. So we should get right into it. So this is Vergecast. I realized that for like years of this show, the years that the Vergecast existed in previously and Gadgett podcast, we would announce what week it was. And we just haven't done that since rebooting the show. They wouldn't miss it.

I don't know. Not one person has mentioned here. I was listening to an old show. And I was like, there was like a whole thing that we did where I was like there. It's the week of whatever day it is. Like Josh and I would like, we both scramble to figure out what day, what week it. And I just stopped doing it. Why don't you get into like a fiscal week or something?

It's for fiscal week 14. Yeah. I mean, just say no, I'm going to tell you that it's the week of February 23rd. Please let me know if that information is useful to you. And if it's not, we'll just stop doing it. So February 23rd, assuming you're a week starts on Monday kind of person, which you should be because that's the only way to do it. Yeah, whose week starts on Sunday? Everybody thinks the week starts on Sunday.

No, no, no. Sunday is a day of sadness. Right. Sunday is the day of morning Right. For the weekend. Yeah. For the week on by. And then you begin a new.

And then you pick up from your hangover. And then you feel bad that you're going to have to work. And then you get over like, you know what? It's okay. I'm ready to face it. And then you realize you're not. And then you create her even further. Yeah.

And then you get drunk again. Yeah. And then you go into work on Monday. Becky refers to this is having the Sundays. Yeah. She will mournfully look at me like basically every Sunday. Like I have the Sundays. And we don't speak for like five hours.

It's a beautiful. marriage, I have to say. Edville. We're really in love. A ridiculous amount of news is. We should get right into it. So, happily as it happens, the FCC scheduled their open internet hearing today on a Vergecaste. I'd like to thank Tom Wheeler for his support.

You can mention offer code verge to get 10% off, Tom Wheeler. No, so the open area, we were live-langing it. We did a really fun thing kind of by accident where Addy was there at the FCC meeting room. DC was smoking dube at home and I was here in the office and we all live logged it together

which is really fun because it is boring. Is this the first three location live log we've done? It might so. It was wild. So we live logged it this morning

we have a bunch of news on the site. Adi took amazing photos. He took amazing pictures of a FCC commissioner Ajit Pye drinking from the world's largest mug and just looking

he looks like that frogging. Yeah, sorry. That's not on my business. That's what you're saying. Chris, run us to the FCC news, and then I will start ranting. Well, the FCC news is that we are now under a new... This podcast is being brought to you under a new regulatory regime.

Yeah. Which is very exciting. The internet is now free and open before it was. It was a nightmare, dystopian nightmare, where Comcast decided that you couldn't see The verge. Yeah. But now everything is different. Everything is better. Everything is different now.

Now we live under King Obama's regulatory oppression. In this new age of internet, the only thing you're allowed to look at are llamas. Oh man, that's actually the biggest news of the day. It really is. Anyway, so the world is different now. Yes, Title II regulation, which we have an encyclopedic backlog of news to sort of bring you up to speed on exactly what that means. But the long and short of it is that the FCC wants to make sure that there's no paid prioritization on the internet, meaning no fast lanes, no slow lanes. a company can't prioritize one content provider's content over another.

And everything is wonderful. Yeah. I mean, this hearing was theater of the highest order, right? Yes. So we all knew it was going to happen. Let me set some stage for you. Is that a phrase? Let me set some stage for you.

Do it. No, let's set the stage, not some stage. Let me do a shoddy job of setting the stage. So complete theater, top to bottom, right? So, Clyburn, Commissioner Clyburn, Commissioner Rosen, Commissioner Rosen, and Chairman Wheeler all come out. They're all wearing, like, royal blue. Yeah, they all come out a little bit earlier, like, exactly on time.

Right. And sit down. They hold hands, and then they sit down. Yeah, two thunderous applause. Yeah, it was just very strange. And Wheeler was like, the history will never believe that we didn't coordinate this. Yeah. Because no one believes them.

Yeah. Because what the hell? Like you're holding hands. Well, blue is the color of freedom and the open internet. And the Democrats. It's true. So then they sit down and then there's like, actually, let me rewind. First, we turn on the live stream in the office.

Oh, God. The live stream, the holding screen for the live screen, like, please wait, we're starting soon, is, I kid you not, it is a red to white to blue gradient that was like shoddly made in Photoshop. Yeah. And like, in impact font, it says, like, we will be starting soon, the FCC. Like the meme font. Yeah, the meme font.

And then there's just funk music playing. It's the Menahan Street Band, a Brooklyn-based group that formed in 2007. I just want to you, it's like, what, 9.30 in the morning or whatever when we turned it on? Just imagine being in office where a group of reporters is watching an FCC hearing. And I receive a note from somebody across the office. It says, please turn down your jams. And I wrote back. these aren't chams, like, we're about to cover an FCC here.

They're like, oh. So funky music playing, they walk in, they're holding hands, thunderous applause. Then Commissioner Pye and Commissioner O'Reilly walk in. Commissioner O'Reilly still refuses to explain why he spells his name so badly. Just imagine, close your eyes and imagine how you spell the words O'Reilly and then mess it up. Yeah. I think he wants us to pronounce it, oh, really? I'm sure you would. So they sit down and we get through the first.

thing on the agenda, which actually really important. Yeah, municipal broadband. And so the FCC is saying states can't write laws that prevent cities from starting on broadband. It's a big deal. But like, whatever. Like, they get through it just like, that it's like, they, you know. It's a weird thing to power through.

In any other FCC meeting, it would be the biggest item on the agenda. Right. And it's powered through it. Well, I mean, there was a little bit of like, let's just talk for a while happening there. Yeah. There was a little bit of the history of constitutional law. Yeah. from Pi.

And it was like, I said this in the live block, but it's like, when you go to law school, everybody wants to take con law. Like, that's where the hot shot professors are who are like arguing in front of the Supreme Court. And like, you know, you dream that you're going to go arguing for that. That's like, why you go to law school. You go, I'm going to save the First Amendment. And then you take, like, a conlaw class.

And it's that lecture that Pye was giving. And you're like, you know, there's just a lot more money, like, working for an oil company or something. Yeah. It's like, I'm out. Who's that contract class? So they power through municipal broadband. The three to two, another party line vote.

Three to two, Democrats say the FCC is going to preempt these state laws, a permanent municipal broadband. And then there's like a pause and like literally committed. They're all tweeting on the stage. Like literally Chris is tweeting with Commissioner Rosenorsel. Yeah. Agit Pie is like faving Chris. And actually they're only tweeting at you. Yeah, they, they, yeah, he paved my tweet and then, uh,

Rosen-Merschel, I didn't even mention her. I just said it looks like each commissioner has their own craft of coffee, which is pretty dope. And she's like, actually, it's water. Fact check, it's breaking my heart. Does the official FCC account still follow you? Yes. Wow.

Yeah. Thanks to Neely. Yeah. He hooked that up. What a sad thing to hook up. Well, I'm brokenhearted because I have a crushing. Commissioner Rosenosel, but she won't pay attention to me. She only pays attention to me.

Oh, really? She's a lovely, actually, all kidding aside, I think that she's, she's the power broker. She's absolutely the powerhouse. Yeah. The city municipal Wi-Fi, she got like broadband barnstorming? Yeah, yeah, she's focused. She's got the charm. Yeah.

She is like, she's, when it was her term to speak on that neutrality, she's like, let me do something revolutionary. I'm not going to say a lot. Yeah. It's just a phenomenal human being and good. votes in that neutrality. Yes. Anyway, so they start, so they start with,

who do they start with, Clyburn? Yes. Yes. And so Clyburn, when she started talking about neutrality, makes it about,

I would say, like, about history, right? So she's like, we're doing this. Because when I say it's theater, it is actually theater. Like,

everybody knows how they're going to vote. Yep. The proposal, they've all read it. Yeah, well, they weren't talking, they were like, the vote that is happening today,

the way that we are voting, like, from get-go. Everybody knew exactly what the vote was going to be and talked about it. Right. And then we found out Adi, like, did some reporting yesterday and found out that they're not allowed to meet privately in groups larger than two because they need to negotiate and per the sunshine and government law.

They have to like negotiate out in the open. In the open, yeah. But like, there was no negotiation. Addie had this line that's like, if you take five people no matter who they are and force them sit in a room and talk about each other without talking to each other, there's no way it's going to look like they like each other. There was more passive aggression. No, just flat out aggression in that room.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Then I've seen in a long time. Yeah, so Clyburn starts. Like, this is history. Like, this is about voices. There's Chad Dickerson, the CEO of Etsy talked. And he's like, there's so much participation, our sellers who are, like, mostly women and people

who work at home. Like, they're passionate about this issue. Clyburn was like, this is, we're, you know, she's like, this is about justice and speech. Rose and Rousel Very short She's like And between After all of these

Weirdly Wheeler would Pop in It's like Clyburn We'd done And Tom Wheeler would be like Good job It was very strange

Rosen-Rosell gave a brief thing Like this is what we have to do We can't take a back seat And Wheeler's like You know You edit it out how cool you are You're the best That was some real leadership

It was just weird Like just a weird scene Yeah And then Pie, who's opposed to naturality, just went off. Yeah, for a long time. For a very, very long time. I definitely got two cups of tea

during his speech. He was going on for a while. And two cups of tea and wrote a blog post and like organized some travel. And then at the end of all that Wheeler... No, no, no. We're not the best part about the Pye's thing

is in the middle of his huge long rant Apple like steals the spotlight for a while. Yeah. Apple got got bored with stealing the spotlight from actual tech companies so now they're just trolling it from the SEC.

But yeah, so pie finishes and then Wheeler's like, so which where are you voting? Are you unsure? Yeah. Like he just straight up trolls him. Oh yeah. I gotta read some of these pie quits because the pie part

of it was like it was like a medley of other people political one-liners. Oh, yes. Yes. He, he quoted Barry Goldwater. That was the, if you'd let the nose of the camel into the tent, the whole camel goes into the tent.

First there was a competition. I looked it up on Wikipedia. It's been around since the 1850s, but it's been around politically only since Barry Goldwater, which, I mean, that's perfect. That's so I'm just saying, like, it's just, there was like, first there was a competition so you could be the folksiest. Yep. So, like, they were all saying things like, that dog don't hunt.

And then, whereas I was like, barnstorming. He quoted, he quoted Reagan. The only thing we have to fear? That's not Reagan. That's the first thing from Reagan possible. Well, yeah, that's actually really... Well, okay. Hype check Reagan.

Hype check Reagan. Good president. Reagan is like four presidents before you're born. I was very far away removed from Reagan. Yeah, he's like... You can say he's very nice. He's very nice. That'd be like Hype check Eisenhower.

Oh, that's a tough one. Hype check Eisenhower. Hype check Ike. It wasn't, wasn't Um Dude, it's definitely like Our newest cartoon character

Like that's our snapchat series Is hype check Ike. He just like bounces around. Is there, I don't think there's any hype surrounding old presidents Because they're just like old Who cares? Hype check Lincoln.

I mean he's tall and the hat And like got shot at theater like that Wow Wow He got shot He's tall He's tall He got shot in the front

face. So it's tall, it's all hype or? Tall hype. You know, you left out the most essential Lincoln fact, right?

Which is that he ended the Civil War. Yeah, slavery, yeah, ball of slavery. He did some other things. All right, I won't,

I want to ask you to sign a numerical hype scroll. He also quoted, Pye also quoted George H.W. Bush. What? Oh, read my lips.

There will be new taxes. Yeah. A delightful inversion. I'm here from the government. I'm from the government here to help. That was Reagan. The only thing I have to fear and fear itself, FDR,

there was something else. And then he went on to quote like a bunch of gadgets, right? Oh yeah. That's what I'm looking for. Samsung Smart TV. No, was that pie or was that?

That was pie. Yeah, that was pie. When he was going off for like four minutes. Okay, I got it. I got it. I got it. And here it is. So he went on,

he was, so this is like the classic opposed to net neutrality move. You list cool things. And then you say that we won't get any more cool things if Comcast has to behave. Yeah. Right? So here's the list.

iPhones, surface, ways, the potato salad Kickstarter. Yeah, right. What a signfeld? Crackle. Just not a good argument. Like, if you're arguing, it's like, yeah, you know, we should have these rules because otherwise we wouldn't get crackle. Like, even Sony be like, yeah, that would be great. That would be awesome because we don't know where we run this shit.

Roku Nest, iTunes, Netflix, The Man in the High Castle. Like, just, I think, House of Car. Like, he was just, Samsung Smart TVs, I said that one already? Like, he was just rattling off stuff. Because, you know what I love is the smart TV features on my Samsung. No, no, wait. The peak of his rattling off stuff was the potato salad Kickstarter. Yeah, right.

You were, a minute ago. Oh, come on. I was breathing. I mean, it was just incredible. And so, like, it's all of these arguments. And the thing that I didn't realize, so he makes all these arguments, he's like, this is going to let the government in the door. This is definitely lead to taxes. And then O'Reilly starts.

And O'Reilly begins with like straight up. He's like, I was reading Twitter after my last presentation. Some people thought I went on for too long. And he's like, well, buckle up. Yeah. And then he proceeds to just go on forever. And so he's on that. And when I realized, like, while you're watching, like, this is theater.

Like, this isn't useful. And then I went and I read. Fox News afterwards. Oh boy. And all those quotes are just into the Fox News media machine. Right. Right. Like, it was wild. And it's like, I don't think net neutrality is a partisan issue. I actually don't. I think because of the way the FCC is structured, it's three to two and there's Democrats and Republicans, I think everybody hates their cable provider. I think everybody hates their internet service. I think everybody hates AT&T and Verizon. I don't think these companies are loved. I think the only telecom company that I think that even remotely inspires any sort of mild effect,

is T-Mobile because they're crazy. Right. Right. Like they've done the work of being crazy. They have like that's the only one. And they're the upstart. So like of course. Every everyone else hates everyone else.

Yeah. Right. So like I think that transcends politics. Like it doesn't matter. Like when when Ted Cruz is like, neutrality is Obamacare for the internet. Like his Facebook page got flooded with like his supporters being like, no, shut up.

Right? So even the Republican position and people, there's obviously more depth of this, but even like the Republican bill in Congress that was rapidly introduced to like shut down Title II, the rules are the same. Right? The rules in the Republican bill are no paid prioritization, no blocking, no throttling, right?

Right. Those are the same rules. They're just not title. It's like they literally were like, well, we want the same thing, but we want to do it this way, not that way. Right. Which is crazy. And that's like, that's a hard thing to politicize

because you're like, no, the opposition is not to the rules. opposition is the legal mechanism and Obama. Yeah. And like that's where they have to go. Well, and Pye was really pushing that angle hard. He kept saying over and over again that he thinks that Obama basically shoved Title II down the FCC's throat. It's like, no, actually the four million people who wrote into the FCC shoved it down.

So, I mean, is that just for the politics, but is that also like, are they trying to build a case for eventually saying that like the FCC didn't have total control of this process? No, I mean, that was like that was like that. Pie and O'Reilly kept on doing it. They kept on calling it the president's plan. Yeah. Which I think is great because it was. Right.

Like he campaigned on this plan. Yeah. Well, I think they're banking on the fact that people like Obama a lot less than they like or dislike the FCC. Right. Right. Like they're just using, they're invoking that name to get some, some hate out of people. I think they're just saying like, oh, like the president's plan is like it's a, like a, it's a specter of evil. But like, I don't think anybody cares at the FCC.

processes. Who cares? Right. Like, I kind of care. That'd be cool. I bet O'Reilly cares. Adjipai hates the FCC. That's his number one go-to argument.

He's like, these five unelected assholes, why are they doing anything? Including myself. I just had this vision of him in his office being like, totally paralyzed. He's like, oh, I really don't get some water, but I'd be trampling the rights of the American citizen. So anyway, so O'Reilly goes, and he just goes off. forever. And then Wheeler like, goes crazy. Yeah. Yeah. He lost it. Yeah. Like just pounding the table being like he's like, people who are like, this is the government interfering with nonsense. Yeah. He's like mad. I've never seen him like it. I think he finally realized what it's like to not

fight against the American people. Yeah. Because he was like, what about this other crappy plan I have? And they're like, no, no, John Oliver, flood the FCC, crash the servers. Presidents yelling at you. He's like, that sucked. I'm doing what you want. And it's going to be a lot. Awesome. Yeah. That was kind of his message. Nilai, would you attribute today's success to two things. One, your article you wrote a year ago, and two, no.

And what about John Oliver? I think John Oliver, so, you know, I think, I'll put it this way. I think we exist, like, in an ecosystem of media, right? So that piece, a lot of people read it. It's one of those popular things that are written. I think that fed into, there was a lot of noise about it at that moment, right? And I think John Oliver's people, like, read a lot of the noise and made their own segment and that got way more eyeballs than ours.

Right, that was in June, John Oliver's thing yours was in February. Right. So that like build up happened. So like, yeah, a lot of people felt. He's also, he's also able to reach like the public kind of thing, you know? No, I mean, I think that, I mean, this is like, it's kind of like a vergy thing to think about. Like the net neutrality segment on John Oliver's show, I think is what broke last week tonight into the mainstream.

Yeah. Oh, interesting. Right. And that's a, that's crazy. Yeah. Right. Like, here's a new show. It's on K. It's on HBO. You have to pay to get it.

Right. They are throwing their segments off onto YouTube. That's weird. How are you monetizing that? You're not driving sign-ups to HBO. You picked net neutrality. And then they did it. Right.

And now there's like the John Oliver race every week where every site posts his thing. And like Vox is like a bunch of traffic from our like jocks today is straight up. I saw that Fox is very good at reprimoting content. It's like their whole thing is they want to make persistent content. You know, explain the news all this thing. and straight out today one of their tweets was like hey net neutrality you should watch this john oliver thing again right because it is the most that i think that broke open the issue for a lot of people when he was when he was just like this when he called tom wheeler a dingo right like any cable company fuckery like i think that broke it open for a lot of people like this is cable companies being corrupt in a way that the daily show and like colbert report and those those shows can do and a really effective way. But it's why, I think that, I think that segment, like, broke his show open.

Interesting. So it simultaneously broke his show open and, like, broke, you know, the mainstream, like, you know, 18 to 32 year olds. Like, it made them give a crap about an energy. What's wrong with 33-year-olds? Why, 18 to 32? You know what? Corporate Sam is doing his marketing demos. He's in the score.

It's slicing it. It is fascinating because there was. No, isn't it? That's the demo. It's 32. Sorry, Chris. They're aged. Yeah, I'm out of the game, man.

No, but, like, what would have happened if John Oliver didn't, you know, do that segment? We could be in a very different place right now. No, it's why it's crazy. And I've seen, and that was like, we, so, I mean, here's a thing. The FCC does clearly does not have good technology, right? During the hearing today, like, the mics were humming. The stream kept dropping. The screen kept dropping.

There's like, they're playing funk music over like a PowerPoint gradient. just like not a great handle on technology. Oh, what was I saying? Oh, we crashed their servers. So, like, when we did the internet as fucked, like, we were like, call this number. We brought down their phones and their servers, and then John Oliver did it again.

And all that leads me to believe is that, like, their servers were not made for any sort of volume. Like, you can dedos, like, the FCC by being like, hey, like, call four of your friends. Just bring it down. Anyway, so then it's done. They have the vote.

This is, I think, the craziest part. To Wheeler gives us, like, big speech. He had the vote. And then they everyone applauds, thunderous applause. And he starts banging his gavel. He's like, we're done. It's over.

And then he's like, wait, wait, wait. I forgot. And he says, are there any announcements? I got so caught up and banging the gavel. And then Ajupai, who's been, like, raging. Like, Adi's, like, all the tension is out of this room. Ashupai just is like, you know, I was, like, at a party. And there's this guy that I just really want to commend him for all the work he's done.

That's like, are you just hanging out? Are we all just done now? Like, see you later. And then they like broke a little bit. Everybody milled around and they had press conferences. They all started raging again. Yeah. But then after that, they, I think they piled into a different room and took a bunch of questions from people.

They did. And they were just kind of hanging out. We saw Mike O'Reilly just kind of like casually with like one elbow on the podium. So weird. Our government's so weird. Like we trust these people. Well. Like they're playing funk music and talking.

like guys who met at parties and then they're like arguing about legal stuff like it's so goofy these five unelected un-American um anyway so chris what do you think what's your what's your hot take on this subject i think we're uh we're in for years and years and years of litigation yeah that's my that's my legal how long until the first lawsuit well uh we've already seen some pretty huffy statements come from oh god we got to talk about verizon yeah we have to talk about bryson and AT&T um so verizon's statement um they jokingly printed in Morse code saying, oh, we forgot what year it was. Yeah, and then if you didn't, you couldn't read the Morse code, you could get a paper copy of like typewriter written.

Yeah. And it's like, cool, guys. I wasn't into your point of view before, but now that you've given me a typewriter copy press release. Also, it, yeah, you know what? Like, the same regular, like, it's all just communication line. So yeah, you're actually making the point for me that they should all be regulated in. the same rules. I mean, Verizon, I mean, it's funny because the rules are, like, Verizon has lived under some of these rules before. Comcast is like no paid prioritization, no blocking,

and no throttling. Well, I mean, they're still, they're still under the, they're still under the rules of the open internet order until what is it, 2018, as a result of the NBC, NBC purchase. Right. So it's just weird, like, um, I record an episode of What's Tech. Shout out to What's Tech, Chris Plant, and Plant was like, that all sounds like really common sense. Like, why is it so controversial? And I don't have an answer. Like, of course the internet. Like, of course internet traffic, like, ISP shouldn't throttle internet traffic.

Right. Like, of course that you shouldn't, like, of course Netflix shouldn't be able to pay to be delivered faster than YouTube. Yeah. It's just reverse, like, literally, like, if you readily accept that Comcast shouldn't slow down YouTube, then you should not as readily. You should equally accept that YouTube should be able to pay Comcast to be faster than Netflix. Right.

Because they're just throttle. They're effectively straddling Netflix. Yeah, I mean, the nut of the Pi-Oreilly argument, I think, really comes down to you are trying to regulate theoretical problems that haven't happened in the real world. And first of all, that's not entirely true. And secondly, that's like saying, well, we're not going to make murder illegal because nobody has killed anybody. I mean, what? Just set up the rules that make sense. And also, I mean, their whole thing, I wrote it somewhere.

It was they keep saying, we don't believe. that the ISPs are interfering in the market. Like, until they do, we don't need these rules. And I'm sitting here, I'm like, I absolutely know that they are. Like, here's another piece of news from this week is, like, Google bought softcard, right? The carrier's mobile payment. Well, so Google bought soft card technology and intellectual property. Right.

They bought a bunch of patents, and they bought, like, the product, and they're probably going to fire everybody. Like, they're already, like, they're already announcing that they're turning off the soft card app pretty quick. Right. So the carrier started their own. do like inevitably doomed mobile payment alliance like when telecom companies start an alliance you in your head you should think this will fail yep that's just a fact hilariously their first name for soft card was ISIS so Google defeats ISIS is a headline that I pitched it was immediately rejected so they started this thing but they blocked Google wallet in favor of promoting their own

solution no that's not even true they blocked Google wallet in favor of having nothing because their solution wasn't ready yet. Right. But they don't want Google to be adopted. Yeah. Right. So they block Google's product on Android phones. If you remember, the Galaxy Nexus was supposed to have Google wallet and Verizon kept it off of there.

Well, there you go. That's all the evidence I need that they should not be allowed to do anything. So whatever, we need better rules. So they blocked Google wallet. I remember when Hangouts was announced, Hangouts video calling. Oh, yeah. AT&T would not let Google preload it on their phone. On Nexus phones.

No, you could have it, but like the video, the video portion of it couldn't be preloaded. Like, you had to, like, go to the thing. I had some crazy-ass conversation on AT&T where they patiently tried to explain to me the difference between an app from Google Play and an app that was preloaded. And I was like, there isn't a difference. What is the difference? And like, well, one app is preloaded. Like, what, why? Apps.

Like, there's like blog post. You can go look them up. What's the AT&T guy's name? Sikoni. Yeah. Like the crazy ATT policy. Yeah. Like he has like a 3,000 word blog post, like patiently that like preloaded apps are different

than Play Store apps. Yeah. And none of it makes sense. I'm not even kidding when I say everyone should read ATT policy blog.com because that's where Coney posts. And it is this amazing alternate universe like from the, from the point of view of a, like a, you know, a DC power player basically. Yeah.

And it'll really, really open your eyes to what happens there. It's insane. I mean, it's why. I mean, you've been reading him for years. And then FaceTime over cellular, right? Yeah. Like Apple wanted to do it, and AT&D was like, no, it has to be Wi-Fi first. And it was Wi-Fi first.

And it's like, dude, I get it. Your network is fragile. It's your mobile carrier. But just leave these people. Like, leave them alone. Like, let the products fail. Like, they're going to, if Apple wants to put FaceTime over cellular, like, and it sucks. Like, people will blame Apple.

They won't blame you. Right. And it's just never going to, I mean, to this idea that there hasn't been harm. Like, there's already been tons and tons of harm in mobile. Right. I think less so on the wide side. Well, there's been a little bit, like, with, like, you watch, like, the Netflix performance, and it's, like, doing fine. And then as soon as there are in negotiations with Comcast, it drops.

Yep. And then they resolve it, and it comes back up again. Yeah. Just wild all the way around. And, like, so these rules, you know, it's so funny. Like, we talk about net neutrality. We're so deep in it. I actually commissioned a post from Ross and Chris to just go to all the mainstream newspapers and, like, clip the paragraph where they desperately try to explain a net neutrality.

is. Because it's just impossible to do it. Yeah. Yeah. The Fox News one was met neutrality is the idea that all things should run at the same speed. There you have it. That's close enough. Like, you know, sure.

Like, I'll take it. It's just, like, it's wild. Obama net. That's what it is. Obama net. It's just wild to think that it's so hard to talk about, even in the context of this show where we've been talking about it forever. I've been talking about it forever.

Chris has been covering it forever. We're still like talking through it. or around it. We never like attack it head on because it's so, like unruly. But yet the public cares about it so deeply. Right? Like I think,

what fascinating thing is on YouTube, there's just hundreds of like amateur net neutrality explainer videos. Yeah. Just people desperately, they're so caught up in it. They're like, I have to explain this to something.

I'm going to do it. I'm going to crack the code. And you can just watch them forever. Some of them are very good. And it's just like, people are so passionate about not screen with the internet. Yeah. And that's what ended up delivering what, what was it, three and a half, four million comments in the FCC system. So yeah, people are passionate about it. So what's next, Chris? What happens other than lawsuits? Because it's definitely, definitely coming. Lawsuits are definitely coming. But otherwise, I think hopefully it's, it's business as usual. I mean, like, I get 100 megabit internet at home. But I, you know, the Comcast merger is incoming. Speaking of which, we should we should address how that like,

those two things interplay because there is an interplay there. Yeah. So Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, Comcast had their earnings yesterday. And during the call, there was a question about whether something, I'm paraphrasing here, but something to do with whether they would consider not suing over Title II regulation in order to help secure a merger with Time Warner, which they're trying to do. and he talked around it and basically said, we don't want to be treated any different from anyone else in the industry.

Right. Which is, as far as I'm concerned, shorthand for if everyone else sues, we're going to sue. Right, right. And also, I think, for, yeah, well, we're happy, because they already are happy with Net Net Netanytrue. They keep saying it. Right. We're already under these rules until 2018. I mean, and so, again.

2018 is not very far away. It isn't at this point. It just sounds far. It's the future. Type check 2018. Beef. Yeah, but the Apple car won't be here by then. So are you sure about that?

How do you know? They said minimum it's going to go into production in 2020. Could start next year, bro. You don't know what minimum means. Also, I thought beef was for Snapchat. Beef has transcended into culture. Okay. I'm going to tell the story and then we're going to read the ad.

I'm going to come back. I'm going to tell the story. And then we'll talk about the watch. Wait, do we need to finish talking about Comcast? Here's what I know about Comcast. Comcast, like, profit per user is like up $5 in the past three years. Yeah. Like they're fine.

Yeah. Their stocks shot up on the day. Everybody's stock shut up. Yeah, it was like, they're fine. Well, right. So the only point that I was trying to make is that I think that Title II regulation would happen today was in many ways just a safeguard against the internet getting jacked. And it's comforting to have that safeguard in place. So, yeah, I think that's like, it is a utility.

Like, we can't live without it. Will this stop AT&T from thrott? bottling me after five gigs because I'm no data damn it no I mean it's I think the effects what are you doing with your data Sam um high quality Spotify I was gonna guess high quality

Tinder but there's a high quality Tinder I actually have no dating apps on my phone right now do you have on your tablet I don't know a tablet I got rid of that phone six plus wow what you're so angry did you just try to

throw down a six plus burn When I asked you if you had a tablet? Yeah. I got it. I thought that's what the joke you were making, so I played to it. I mean, good, well done. Let me tell the story about Sam. Oh, God.

So we had, uh, where the Verde is being profiled in another publication. So we had a reporter here. Oh, boy. It's true. So the reporters, like, walking around, like, meeting people and all this stuff. I think we get to Sam and the reporter, like, they're very curious about Snapchat. Like, what we're doing at Snapchat. So I'm like, we start talking.

And I'm like, Sam, do a snap. seems like a basic thing that you could do, right? Like, we're talking about a thing that you do. Yeah. You're here in the office with the tool with which you do the thing. And Sam looks at me dead serious. And he's like, the first rule of Snapchat is you can't force a snap. Just like, no, just rejects me in front of this reporter.

He's like, nope, not doing it. And then he keeps going, like, epic Snapchat feel. You know, our lawyers are Suzanne and Samantha are, like, here. They were live logging each other in Slack. because Sam's just like just a beautiful Here's the highlight Here's the one and this is true It explains so much about our Snapchat scene

Sam goes I don't think of them as followers I think of them as friends It's beautiful Thank you The Real Verge on Snapchat That's yeah The Real Verge on Snapchat

We need to take a break And we're going to come back We're going to talk about the Apple Watch But first let's talk about websites And websites websites built on Squarespace Websites that are simple and powerful beautiful websites that you don't do a good job of making so you need 24-7 support but i should

just read the other copy let's let's be real i have two choices here one we have like a list of points to hit yeah yeah and i could like weave a beautiful story yeah or i could just read the copy it's up to you man i'm gonna get better at the other thing but first building website can be tough And if you do know your way about coding, creating something that looks good and works well is a time-consuming affair. Whether it's a business site, a portfolio, a restaurant, or whatever else. In this day and age, you probably need a website. Chris, do you have a website? I do.

What do you do with it? I blog once in a while. I don't know what I do. I haven't written my personal blogging forever. But if I was going to update that, I would take it off that bust Tumblr. Wow. Like I said, transcendent into culture. Sam tells a reporter that beef or busts has, quote, transcendent into the culture.

So if I was going to build beeferbust.com, I would say, lucky, Squarespace makes it easy to build beautiful websites. Squarespace provides simple, powerful, and beautiful website templates. They should have, like, literally a column that says beef and a column says bust. Like all the old, ugly ones. Not only that, but these templates are part of Squarespace as responsive design, which means your website's scaled look great. on any device. Further minimizing the hassles of making a website on your own. Every website you build also comes to the free and online store if you need it.

Christopher? Do I need a website? Are you asking me a question? I'm sorry. I mean, you of all the people I know, sell more things. Oh, yeah. You absolutely should launch an online store. You should start a site called like Chris's old stuff.

Oh my God. If I'm not mistaken, Sam, do you own side hustle.com? I will not answer that question. Live on the air. Oh, my God. Well, anyway, Oh, my God. A lot of people are selling a lot of things.

The internet is a great place to sell things. I think that meets the requirements here. Seriously, you can't beat the ease and simplicity of Squarespace, which is true, I think. Squarespace gives you 24-7 online support and a beautiful website for $8 a month, which is peanuts. Not bad, really. It's right, less than your peanut budget. It's like Netflix. It's like only you have to provide content.

It's like reverse Netflix. What are you doing? Binge creating a website. It's best weekend ever. You can even get a free domain if you buy Squarespace for the year, which is good because most of my demands are expiring. Dude, Dieter, what are you waiting for? Start a trial with no credit card required.

Peter, get on it. I was waiting to find out why I don't need a credit card, I guess. Reversenetflix.com is a great idea. I'm going to register that. So here's what you do, because you would sign up with offer code Verge to get 10% off of your first purchase. And to show your support for the Vergecast, which is what you're listening

to, maybe watching, if you're one of the tiny handful of weirdos who watch us. Love you, weirdos. So thank you, Weirdos. Thank you Squarespace. We love you. And Dita read the tagline. Squarespace. Built it beautiful. Is it build or built?

Both. Squarespace. Anything goes. Well, build it beautiful as present tense, built a beautiful. It's like, no, once a command, once a, one's an imperative, go do this thing. And then the other one's, oh, I did this thing. Right. Yeah. All right.

We're out of the ad zone. This content is no longer sponsored. And now we're in the bones. Explain to me more concisely in like 30 seconds, 10 seconds, because I wasn't listening before. What is the relationship between the Comcast Time Warner merger and this FCC decision? Well, what happens next? Well, so you can see how it could be valuable for Comcast to play ball in not objecting too hard to the Title II regulation in order to help secure popular opinion in D.C., for lack of a better of phrase. But other than them, like, occurring favor by going along to get along with this decision, this decision doesn't have any direct impact on the chances of whether or not the same.

No, yeah, there's still, yeah, still apples and oranges. It's just a question of whether they want to, you know, not object to it in order to make people happy. Yeah. I mean, we should really move on to the watch, but I will say this. Comcast and NCTA, which is basically a Comcast lobbying organization, National Cable and Telecom Association. They are doing a hilariously good job of promoting tweets to basically say things like, we love the open internet. Find out more here.

And then you click on it. it's like screw Tom Wheeler. Yeah. And it's like just so confusing. They've co-opted this language in such a weird way. Like Comcast is like, but we are the internet. Yeah. Why would we want to hurt it?

We love it. Right. Well, but there are also these situations where you get Comcast in a corner and talk to them. And they're like, but we built this thing. The government didn't build this thing. We built it. Like we, you know, why are they taking away from us? Why are they, you know, stopping us to do from doing what we want to do with it?

and that's, you know, that's the language that they don't want you to hear, but that's what they really think. Yeah, they're very, they're very strange, just in general. Okay. Apple Watch? Yeah, Apple Watch. Do you want to take us to the watch? So, what happened today is-

And the MacBook, I have to say, like... We're expecting a MacBook. Yeah, but... And the watch. Okay, fair. Right? It's going to be both of this thing. Because we've seen plenty of the rumors for the MacBook,

and, like, the watch is like, it's time. Because the thing they said is going on April. It's time. Don't even. Oh, my God. So the... Bubble Time. came out.

It's March 9th. If you really want to know the details, it's happening at the San Francisco Yerba Buoyne. So it's like a different kind of thing than on the campus. Yeah. And it's got a beautiful flower-looking thing,

which fits at the watch for some reason. Going to be on my next Supreme Jacket. And the tagline is spring forward, which is like a, you know, time joke, I guess. It's a time. I mean,

the best analysis of the time joke I saw was on Bloomberg. Uh-huh. Where they like literally posted a tweet that's, said update, sources confirm, that will be about watch, and then there was an explanation of the joke. Spring forward is a reference to daily savings time, and Liz, you used to work at Moonberg, was like, no, Bloomberg has this really strict policy where they have to explain everything.

Yeah. Which is the best. So Bloomberg is like the worst people on Twitter. Like when you make a joke and then someone replies explaining the joke to you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good. No, Bloomberg is fine on Twitter. Okay. But you're saying, never mind.

I got you. You got me. What else is there to say about the line? The event's coming. A bunch of people got invited from what Twitter looked like. Apple has been on this trend of inviting more and more people to their events, and I think that's continuing. I saw that our YouTube friend, Marquez Brownlee, got an invite. Oh, hey.

Yeah. My invite got lost in the Internet, just by the way. The last event. Hypochack Apple invites. I mean, where's mine? Hype check spring forward. Hell yeah. Hype check daylight savings time

It is so dumb that that exists Yeah When's the last time you wore a watch Um No I don't have a G-shock I wore a pebble for like I don't know like two weeks Probably like a year ago

You're gonna buy this Apple watch and wear it for three days And then you're not gonna do it yourself It's not just you I can hide check open Hype check G-shack Dude You create this type around G-Shok solely yourself.

They sell them at Flight Club. There's nothing hyper than Flight Club. Anyway. It's real. So there's a real, like, world here in which Chris is just Sam 10 years in the future. I don't know that I hadn't made that connection before. Just pointing out they sell them in Flight Club. So if you let us talk about the Apple Watch for

just a few more minutes, I'll let you talk about Forsa and Fasten the Furious. Pebble time. So what else do we know about the watch, the Apple Watch? Well, here's what I think they have to show off in the night. So we've been speculating this for a while. Now there's an event. They've said it's coming out in April.

Yeah. They have to show you how it works. They have to show you how it works. They have to trot out a bunch of developers. Yep. They got to do apps. They got to show how it connects to the phone. Yep.

I think Apple's not dumb, right? They read everything. They've heard the criticism. They have to know that the question is, what is it good for? Yep. What is a killer app? Absolutely nothing. No, you don't know that.

Did you just do a war reference? Yeah, I did. I did. Yeah, real funk music. Right. Yeah. On the verge, man. I think this is going to be like when they showed off the original iPhone at Macworld.

And then they had their event six months later. And now it's like that point where we all saw the watch. And now everyone's expectations are already set because of the event already. And there's been like all this like up and down of the press. Like, oh, it's going to suck. No, it's going to be good. and the other day Tim Cook was like, oh, you could wear in the shower.

I, this is not the fanboy in me speaking, but I believe that they are going to have a slew of new things that they withheld from the old event to be like... I wouldn't say a slew. I mean, I think what they withheld, I think...

It got better over the last six months. The more I think about that event, the more I'm like pretty crystallized in my opinion of it, which is Apple bought their own hype. And they did all the things that Apple is known for in creating hype without any of the substance, right? And so they're like, this is a revolution. This is our next big category.

This is magical. This is going to change everything. Like, they said all those things. Right. But it doesn't, we all walked away with like a very kind of confused sense. Yeah, it doesn't really feel like it's as revolutionary as the iPhone was. It's just like Apple.

I mean, absolutely not. No. Right. But the expectation that they would create something as revolutionary as the iPhone is fundamentally unfair. Right. Right. I would say so.

But I'm saying, like, there's all this sizzle and there's none of the stake. And I think, I don't think Apple is dumb. I think they've been paying very close attention. Yeah. And I think this event is, like, going to be demo after demo after demo of stuff it can do. Yes. Yep. How easy it is to figure out and like, oh, it's really simple.

It's just, oh, there it is. Okay, cool. Right. Right. So they're going to do that. And then I think we're going to see this MacBook. No, well, no. There's, you're missing one super duper important thing.

Yeah. Pricing and availability. Yes. Because the pricing, you know, there's all sorts of stuff. I think the best thing. written about the pricing is like what John Gruber put up last Friday where he not only like said

double down I was like look this is going to cost between 10 and 20 grand at the high end he also What? The gold one is 10 to 20 grand? Yeah. Oh easily yeah no if you look at the amount of gold in the addition I had a really long conversation with luxury singleton about this

if you look at the amount of gold in the addition it doesn't come anywhere it can't come anywhere where close to what would justify a $10,000 price. Yeah, but they could still do it. It'll be like $1,500. It'll be like $2,000. No way.

It'll be more than that. It'll be 10. I bet you 10. I think you're both wrong. It's going to be three to five. No way. Yep. Anyway, it's going to be a lot. But the other thing that he's speculating is that you're not going to be able to

like pick and choose your different bands on the high. Like if you go to buy the addition, like the gold one comes with this band or maybe this band. And that's it. Right. Which is interesting. But that makes sense because, Ronnie I have, like, crapped all over Motomaker in his New Yorker profile, right?

So why would Apple want a Motel maker experience for the Apple Watch? Yeah. But it's interchangeable bands. I think on the sport one, they'll let you like have... The sport one, you can get a few, I'm sure, with tons of colors and stuff. But I bet you you can't go get the luxury band just on its own.

That's the thing that he's guessing. By the way, for those of you who don't know, he said luxury again. Micahingleton, his nickname is luxury singleton. Yeah. So he lives a full custom lifestyle. Yeah, he lives a bespoke lifestyle, for sure. How many do they sell first weekend?

I don't know. They sold 10 million iPhone 6, 6 pluses. That's not the, like, that's thing. I know, I know. That's like, speculate. The iPhone, like, created, like, the world, right? Like, the whole notion of the modern smartphone came from the iPhone. Yes.

At that time. And I know there's going to be a, like, this is the moment when I start getting pictures of old Nokia phones and Twitter. Like, they're just coming. I said the iPhone created the notion of the modern smartphone. And now, like, the Nokia fans. Boys are going to rage. They're like, like somewhere in Finland,

like somebody woke up. No. I think you a communicator 9,000 or whatever. I'm just, I'm gonna just. No, like it can't be like all of the stuff that happened. Three million.

Three million. Three million I watch as weekend one. Three million. Okay. That's a number. Yeah. Yeah. Look,

I think they have to do the thing. Like I am. But it's assuming there's three million to be bought. But anyway. I don't know. Like, this actually goes into the pebble time, right? Like,

so Pebble did the time this week. this week. They put it on Kickstarter, which is super thirsty. Just was. And, you know, we saw it. We did the exclusive video.

And, you know, their whole, Pellell's whole thing is like, this isn't, we don't make it do a lot of stuff. Right. They're like,

this is about notifications. They read it the UI. The UI looks really adorable. Yeah. It's maybe a little, the whole thing looks a little too cute to me. Yeah, it was described as a Tamagotchi on a wristwatch.

Yeah. I think it looks like a palm. desire. You can't charge $150 for an object that looks like that. You just can't. You're going up to Eric Mitzigowski. You're like, you can't do that. I think I tweeted this yesterday. Like the Saco that you can buy for $150 looks like I'm called a piece of art, but it looks like a piece of fine jewelry. Yeah, but it doesn't do what this thing does. It's it's five dollars worth of electronic components in this

thing. It's a very low quality to splenely. You say that, but it's a color display that will let the thing last for seven days, unlike the Apple Watch, which will last a day, presumably. That's what we're guessing. This is true. That's important to me. There have been lots of rumors about Apple not really being able to hit their battery life targets, which is a big problem. Yeah. Also, like, I will say that having to, like, do a thing to make the time appear on the watch defeats the entire purpose of the watch.

Yeah. If I can't subtly glance down and see the time, I have to, like, go like that. It's like, well, just... Right. I've actually... The rumors of the battery life have been around since before the watch, like, for a year. Yeah. Like, I would hear, like, apples are going to watch.

Yeah, that battery is going to be a big problem for that. Well, there is the classic Apple move of them seeding, like, seeming to seed bad news and then exceed those poor expectations. Right. Yeah. They did that with the original iPad, if. you remember, I think the rumors were that it's going to cost $1,000 or something, right? And then that made the price look really good when they announced it. I think the addition, I think they got to go big on the number for the addition.

Yeah. I think three to five is like, it's whatever. Like, that like feels like accessible. They need to, they need to make it feel like, holy crap. There's one. They got to be like, it's no way. Yeah. Why?

Because they have all the cheaper ones. China. No, I'll give you two reasons. China. One. So you're saying. it's going to cost 20K. Is that your final statement?

I would go, I don't say it's a final set. I would, I would just like to experience the moment where they put up the pricing slide and he's like, this piece of garbage is 349. I and X class. That's exactly what he's going to say. And then he's got the middle one where he's like, here's a number, 600 bucks or whatever. It's going to be in the middle. And then he's like, you know, and then he's going to get real quiet.

The addition is the finest materials. Solid gold. babies. Whatever the hell's it's a very special product. We're so proud to have made it. Johnny's done such a good job turning babies in the phone.

Johnny, please stand up. Johnny, like, no. He's just like, no, I'm just, I don't do this. And he's like, and we're pricing it to match.

I bet they're like, and it's like $4.99. The thing drops down. That would be amazing. I bet they don't even talk about the price of the gold one on stage. No, but I think they're like,

but I think he's like, the Apple Watch edition. No retail for $20,000. We're building a custom experience in our store. And then they're going to do the store unveiling. They're definitely going to talk about the stores for a long time. So if they do that, if they do that, you've been waiting to do that in camera.

This is a movie's been doing lately. This is a new thing. Immediately please. For those of you on audio, that is my new finger gun sound. It's so good. You do like the head jerking. Oh, it's great. You really get into it.

Tim Kloat drops the 20s. And he's just a sharpshooter on the stage. At Johnny. Johnny, my man. All right, we should move on. We're not done with this watch. Oh, God. We're going along today.

Chris, I want to hear you. Johnny, two hour verge cast. It's coming. Here we go. Bungle up. Push the turbo button on that PC, buddy. Listen to us at 1.5 speed. John, you just got poned.

Pronounce owned. Oh, my God. No, it's pronounced pown. Okay. At $10,000. Chris's B, clearly. At $10,000, they would have to immediately explain. They cannot put off the conversation of what do you do in a year when you're like, I want the new one.

Exactly. Like, at $3,000 to $5,000, they can pay. put off that conversation until next year. At 10,000, they cannot. You totally misunderstand Apple. Like, the Apple is totally fine to have that just hanging out there. And 3 to 5, I agree. No, even at 10, they're totally fine to just have it hang out there.

They don't care about what you think. What is the most expensive product Apple has ever made? Like, you could, oh, like, the 20th anniversary. It was 7499. Yeah. No, I don't think that's the most expensive product ever made. I know you could, like, max out. Lisa was $15,000.

Right, but you could max it up. I'm saying, like, baseline thing like this. Yeah, Lisa. Yeah. Lisa was 10,000. Oh, wow. And plus, if it's not replaceful or they leave it out there, it becomes even more of a luxury item, even though like a $10,000 watch. But a $10,000 watch that expired that goes bad after a couple years is way more baller than a $30,000 watch that lasts forever.

I don't understand that price is old computers. The Lisa was introduced in January 19th, 19th, 193 and cost $10,000. $10,000, approximately $23,700 in today's dollars. That's crazy. But that was the product that made the Mac exist, right? Because Steve Jobs was like, this is ridiculous.

It's just funny. We complain about like $700 phones now. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, ugh. All right. Here's just a Lisa for 24K, everybody. It runs one app and it's crappy. And it's not even gold.

It's a revolution. You're, you both are presumably going to be there, right? You like Neelion Dieter. They're going to get to the watch price, and they're going to be like, it starts at 3.49 or whatever. Right. They're in a room. You're going to be in a room with developers.

Okay. No. No. We're going to be in a room with incredibly. Incredibly fashionable, beautiful, rich fashion people. I just, it's going to be, to me, I think it would be absolutely laughable if Apple was like, yeah, the gold one's $10,000. Ha, ha, ha, ha, all you rich people are going to buy it anyway. Like, no way.

No, they're going to. Okay. I would like to point out that my finger gun story is way more believable than Tim Cook cackling at rich people. It's the most beautiful. You know, he's a rich person. I'm going to buy it as well. They're not the aliens from the Simpson. Chris, I'm with you.

We've made a product that only other Apple employees can afford to buy. No, like the people in Dubai and people in China and people in India and rich people everywhere. going to buy the gold one, but $10,000 to $20,000 is absurd. And I'm happy to be proved wrong. It's not going to be 10 to 20. I would say the class of people that you are talking about, they spend that much money on private plane flights, which are, you know, like, that's true. I guess.

Yeah. They're just on a whole other level of, like, monetary, like, how they think of value. Like, when you, like, spend, like, 20 bucks, like, out drinks, it's like, oh, I'll drop 10 grand, like, at a club kind of thing, right? Even like Shane Smith, he spent $300,000. Yeah. The CEO of ICE spent $300,000 on wine and dinner. Right.

Yeah, but to be fair, he had just won $100,000 playing Blackjack. So he was like, I'll spend $300,000 on his dinner. Like, sure. Like, it was so much money that it made, the story came out because it made the casino's earnings report. Like, it was like highlights of the quarter. It's like, one person is rich. Like, circled. This was cool.

Smiley-based. We'll see. No, I think they got to go big. I don't know. I don't have any backup on that. I don't, I think that they have to, if they're, if they are doing what they say they're doing, right, Johnny, I was redoing the store with Angela Arons. They're doing all of that. It's not for a bunch of like $1,000 watches.

Hey, so then maybe this is like, Apple, Apple is already in the category of retailers that sells $1,000. Right. But a $5,000 watch is, is, uh, you. a brightling, it's a fordice. It's a very low-end Rolex. It's still a high-end watch, but it's within the realm of reason that a normal would buy it. I think that they've got the low-end addition for the normals. I'm kind of the top tier shit.

I'm starting to kind of like shift. It's going to not be for normal. Like you picture the Apple store. The whole point of luxury is that regular people can't afford it. That's why it exists. But I'm saying it's not because it's good or looks good. Can we get the watch in gold and rose gold? Yes.

Man, this gold of the black band looks pretty cool. And so does the gold with red. Here's what I'll say like. But Apple can split the difference. They can have it both ways. So imagine like in a year from now. We think the gold is red looks good. We're never going to resolve us.

I think the gold is right. The gold is awesome. No, I think the the Apple stores with this watch. I think it just looks like my mom. Like I look at this and like I definitely just see like my mom. Like this is my mom's purse. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the point. No, I was going to say like this. Like, that's a whole reason why I don't think that you're going to be able to, like, interchange the straps is look at the dot on the crown. This could be Apple's move into, like, the real luxury game. Like, when you go into an Apple store, it's, like, computers, phones, and then, like, watches, nice, beautiful. And then the $10,000 one is, like, in the glass case with, like, lights and stuff. It's like the Virtue store inside the Nokia store.

The, or, like, the Magnolia store inside the Best Buy, but not totally. broken. I can't wait to see rich kids of Instagram and every one of those dudes is just going to have the gold Apple Watch. Like, it is going to be awesome to do a hashtag search on Instagram that day and the next day and like the first week to see like the just influx of rich dudes on their private jets. Because like that's going to be

It's not going to be that cool to see that. I think it will be cool. It'll be high. It'll be hype for like a minute. Isn't it going to be weird when you guys are live blogging next to like Vogue? because that's what's going to happen this time. Anna Wintour is going to be next to you, live blogging. There's like tethered with her DSLR. Dupor weird. Yeah.

She's taking pictures of their flip phone. Yeah. How are they going to give her a watch? Oh, no. She probably uses a Porsche design P-9999898. What the hell phone is that? Blackberry? Yeah.

Jesus. I was just watching a movie where there was like the guy who was like a rich guy and they gave him a Porsche Blackberry and it was super funny. I can't remember a movie. In that movie where Sasha Baron Cohen is a dictator, the dictator. He uses... Good job, Chris. He uses in the movie Amobiato, which is a...

I believe it's a... Is it a Canadian brand? I don't know, but it's an ultra-high-end. It's like a Virtue competitor. But it's the only time I've ever seen a Mobbado outside of... And they probably paid a hell of dollars to put it in that movie. Man, I'm going to definitely end up buying one of these. The gold?

No. No. Oh, yes. You hype lord. If I had $20,000 to blow, I would definitely just go on one coast to coast private plane flight. Just to do it. And then you would buy the watch and then ride home with the watch. No, it's because here's the thing about this watch in particular.

Like you can just spend $3.49 and have this watch. Yes. Like Chris is like a watch guy, right? Like you care about watches. Do you have a watch on right now? No. Some watch guy. I do.

Burn. Some watch guy. Well, yeah, but that's because you literally stole that off my desk. I watched you see. I watched you. refused to review. I watched you, I said, do you want to review this? You have until the end of the day to the side. At the end of

the day, I said, are you doing it or not? And you're like, eh, and then I took it so that we could have a review. You straight up Bogart into the watch, bro. And you just keep lying. Chris, you're buying an Apple Watch? Who in this room is not buying an Apple Watch? And I really... First of all,

Chris buys everything. And then he's going to try and sell it to us. He'll sell it to us. If you want... Chris, how fast until the... staff email that says she wants an Apple Watch. Just follow Chris Ziegler on Twitter. He will sell into you three hours after it's available.

I mean, that's kind of, yes, that's kind of true. No, I mean, I always say the only, it's weird because I bought both pebbles. I'll probably end up buying a pebble time. Yep. Just because. Double time. Why do they name it? Stop.

Is that a notification? When you get a notification, pebble time. I mean, it's such a bad name. Man, no, we had a solid hour of quality puns. Oh, no. Yeah, making, we ended up in Nate making time. When we're doing the headline. But like, whatever.

It's like you have to, it's the first one of it. And you category, you got to buy it. You got to screw with it a little bit. I mean, that's literally what we do here. Yes. But I. And you want to send your heartbeat to David Pierce. Oh, I'm going to heartbeat troll this.

Oh, one question about this. One question. Are you going to be able to do the inspector gadget? Hey, what's going on? Done. And then you listen to your message like on your wrist. Is there a speaker on this thing where you can just like listen to it like this? Why is your elbow?

What's this? No, this, like the watch is here. I'm going to wear the watch on the inside of my wrist. Why? Because he likes shattering things. No, it's got ion X glass. Oh, yeah, that's right. Myon X-Kaz.

Are you going to be able to do that. This watch is like the pinnacle of Apple just giving things names that never had those names. The crown. All those names. No, but are you going to be able to do the dream of the, you know, the dream? That's not a dream of anyone but, like, want to be secret service agents to, like, talk to your wrist. I can. I can text four friends right now, say, how sick would it be if you did the thing?

And they'd be like, hell yeah. Yeah, and then how sick would it be if you were Kevin Koster and the bodyguard? He doesn't know what that is. I never seen that movie. So, nope. I will be Sam Schreffer with the Apple Watch. Oh, my God. So, can anybody answer the question?

I'm just imagining Sam what he listed right now. No one knows. No one knows. We'll find out Monday. He's saving Wendy. He's just running in. I've never seen this movie. The bodyguard.

You know the Whitney Houston song? I will always love you. Yeah, I know that one. That's from the bodyguard. That's where that there was just like weird period where like hit songs only came from movies. Yeah. That's true. True.

Like we were looking at. We were looking at the Berlin song from Top Gun. Like nobody believed in that that song was written for Top Gun. Interesting. Take my breath away. It's like it's just from Top Gun. Yeah. Like straight up like Berlin was like, hey, cool song.

They were like like Jerry Bruchheimer was like, yeah, I got this movie. movie about jets and I'm like, got it. That's Whitney Houston. What was the poor you were making of this movie? The bodyguard? You should watch the body. You should know these things. Nilai, Hypechecked bodyguard.

I mean, you can't hijack, Eli? Yeah, I mean, the hypechaker has come to the bodyguard. Hype check refused. Smack the mallets. All right. Is that our show? We want a little bit more.

Is there anything else you talk about? Um, uh, Mobile World Congress is coming up next week. Pay very close attention. When does it start? When does it start? What we're doing? Uh, I believe that like, press day is like Sunday.

So tune to The Verge on Sunday. Like a day we're usually just probably hung over in bed or like out to brunch or like going on a job. If you have a case of the Sundays ever, come to the verge. Oh yeah. Sundays on the Verge. Yeah. Keep it locked. Sad together.

No, happy together. So happy. Oh, my God. Oh, my gosh. The only song you're allowed to sing on the verge cast is I will. I am not going. Well, I am I. In addition to our podcast, you can also find What's Tech, which is a great podcast.

Both are available at iTunes.com slash The Verge. We didn't talk about the Galaxy S6 at all. Helloley. That's all you need to know. Or the Laman Chase. Here's actually the biggest news of the day. Oh, wait. The entire one of the biggest story.

I want to tell the story. Okay. So Casey, one of our developers here. I'm still not talking to the Galaxy S6. that thing it'll leak to death before it already has so Casey one of our developers

side channel on the end goes dude llama chase and I'm like LOL what and he's like dude and he just hits me with the URL and he's like put this on the TV and I just put it on the TV

and there's a live llama chase in the middle of it was Arizona yeah Arizona and a black llama and a white llama and then just like the internet just erupted

with llama coverage okay and Eli like comes out of me He's like, dude, there's this llama. And like, as he's saying this, he turns around and he sees this big-ass TV with the llama chase. And he just goes, yes. That's awesome. It was really awesome.

And then we just sat there and watched the llama chase. It appears that llamas are very difficult to catch. It was like a solid 30 minutes. No, there's a, there's one long, I can't believe I'm talking about. So stupid. There was one long sequence in which the man just calmly walked alongside the llama. And he was just like, hey, Lama. And I was like, why do you just catch it?

Like, you're right, like, it's moving slow. You're moving slow. But what's your move? Like, he just like, bear hug it? He like, reached out to, like, pet it. And Lama's like, nope. And, like, boo. The Galaxy S6 leaked a lot.

So did the HGC 1M9. The HGC 1M9 looks terrible. It looks, that. It looks like the HC M8. Why is that terrible? It looks like the, in profile. It looks like the M8 wearing an astronaut suit. I'm just going to say.

The bottom of it is an iPhone. They took the hat and it's got like a pack on the back because the camera wasn't out. They gave it a piece of junk. Like isn't that all you wanted? Sure they did. I don't believe. Do you believe they gave it a camera that's a piece of junk?

They don't believe any Android camera isn't a piece of junk until I try it. And then I end up disappointed. That's what happens all the time. Chris is the only one who liked the Me Notes camera or didn't like the Meenuts camera. Everyone else was great. I think our standards of photography would just fall in as a culture. Well, like, my test was the simplest possible test. I went into Harold Square, took a bunch of pictures.

with the MeNote and the iPhone 6 plus. One look great, one look terrible. End of story. And they were both full auto, which is how real people use their cameras. It's like, you know, I reject anyone who says, oh, well, you just needed to turn this on or this off or like change the aperture.

No, no, no, no. Like when you open your camera, you press shoot and then you're done with it. Did you tap to focus and expose for the bright sun? Did you use a camera? I think so. I don't remember. But point being, like, I can show you all the shots I took. Like, they were consistently better on the 6 plus.

It doesn't really surprise me. But that being said, I mean, the me note is a surprisingly good fun. By the way, we still haven't talked about the Gales. Yes. We just can't do it. It leaked all over the place. Leaky, Leakey, Leakerson. It looks like there's two versions.

There's the edge one and the, regular one and it has literally has the bottom of the iPhone 6 and 6 plus like if you hold those things simultaneously and you have like one second to look you will not be able to tell the difference yeah it is a straight gang Sam Sean Ocane photoshopped your face oh I yeah I dropped it in here it is kind of well I just tweeted it to everyone oh great awesome uh look the galaxy it's gonna be fine right it's gonna be fine we'll see it at mobile world I'm sorry I'm telling you but I will I will I will quickly, and everybody is questioning this, I think the 1M9 looks bad. It has like a bad two-tone paint job.

This is the moment when the guy loses control of the llama. Oh, yeah. It's like, out! It's like gone! I'm done with this. That's so good. That's my life. And he lassoed the crap out of that white one. Yeah. It was awesome. Okay. Galaxy S6. We're probably going to see, I mean, it's going to be fine.

I think the S6 edge is a huge gimmick. I think those curve screens are a huge gimmick. Yes, I agree. And it's not to say that curve screens won't eventually be awesome, but I think that's still trying to figure out exactly what you do with them. Yeah. And they haven't figured out yet. And there's not, like, Samsung will never figure.

Like, Samsung, like, the task for Samsung, like, figure out what to do with a hardware gimmick. Like, it's not, it's like, that's like getting in a car and, like, drive up. Samsung does not have that capability. If you remember correctly, their first phone with the curve display was the Galaxy round, which was, first of all, curved in the wrong direction, inexplicably. And secondly, the only special feature about it was something called round interaction, which no one could actually figure out. That's funny how completely I blocked that out and how much of it is coming back.

Samsung is great at hardware gimmicks. They just don't have the chops to build software to take advantage of them. Anyway, that's it. Sam, you get three. three social networks. Ooh, three. You got to pick. I think there's...

Snapchat. There's one. Do that. Snapchat. You should follow us on Snapchat. We are the Real Verge. We have like a bunch of shows, like new shows come up every week. Then we have our YouTube channel.

You should subscribe to us on YouTube. We are YouTube.com slash The Verge. Awesome videos there as always. There is a hella backlog of videos you can find too. Hella backlog. And you can also find us on Facebook. We are Facebook.com slash Verge. We post all of our articles there as they happen.

Hello articles Hello backlog on the Facebook And that's where you should hit us up And yeah That was the right through social that works That's the thing Sam is at sham shepher On shopper

Sam is available on Twitter So is Deeter So am I At Sam Schaffer Backlong, Reckless Z power Sam Schaeffer You should go on iTunes

That's the thing you should do You should tell me How much you You should rate Give us five stars on iTunes and then tell us how much you think the Apple Watch edition will cost. Also, apparently, many other podcast apps. Many.

All of them actually now. Every single podcast app. I think we just did a Stitcher thing. We're just getting there. Get in your podcast zone. Yeah. Rate us highly and then leave a comment about the price of the Apple Watch edition. And that's it.

That's the Vergecast. Goodbye. I'm Chris Plant, and I believe technology can be, well, a little impenetrable. So I've invited my friends into a tiny padded room to take. tell me how it all works. And now you're just on your high horse and you don't care about the people. You just care about getting what you want. I almost killed a woman and her child on a bicycle with a drone.

I'd say probably my all-time, like, true heart of hearts ship is Agent Dale Cooper and Audrey Horn on Twin Peaks. I'm sitting there with this watch on my wrist and the staff at this particular Applebee's were not too impressed. You can hear it all on my new podcast. What's Tech from The Verge? The...