The Vergecast - iPhone X Review

Episode Date: November 3, 2017

The iPhone X is finally here. Nilay had the chance to review it, so, along with Paul, Ashley, and Dan, he discusses what it’s like to use the phone in the real world as well as what the process of reviewing it was like. We also welcome Phil Esposito, The Verge’s lead video director, to the show for the first time to discuss the roller coaster that is working on the two videos we produced throughout the week. There’s a whole lot in between that — like Paul’s weekly segment about a robot dog — so listen to it all and you’ll get it all. 03:22 - iPhone X first impressions 24:33 - iPhone X review with Phil Esposito 37:16 - Animoji 50:14 - Paul’s weekly segment “Can form an emotional bond with members of the household while providing them with love, affection, and the joy of nurturing and raising a companion” 53:48 - The HTC U11 Plus was originally intended to be the Google Pixel 2 XL Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, Vergecast fans. After you've gotten updated on the developments in tech this week, come join us at Worldly, Vox's Foreign Policy Podcast. It's Jen Williams, Zach Beecham, and me, Yolchidreason, with your weekly guide to making sense of the wider world, the big stories, the small ones, the depressing ones, the funny ones. You can find us in your favorite podcasting app. Come subscribe, rate review.

Email us at worldly atvox.com. We'd love to hear from you. This episode of Vergecast is brought to you by Qualcomm's Snapdragon Gigabit LTE. With download speeds up to seven times faster than typical home Wi-Fi, Snapdragon GigabitLTE can turbocharge all of your connected apps. You can stream 360-degree videos in 4K with minimal buffering. You can access files on the cloud nearly as fast as you would if they were stored on your phone.

And you can download hours of movies or music in a matter of seconds. To learn more, visit snapdragon.com slash gigabit today. Hello and welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of theverge.mobie slash biz. That's a URL. You know a friend of mine today on our Instagram story. She's like, today I learned that URL stands for uniform resource locator. And then her next story was like, I feel so much better about everything. Like she made it flage.

What does URI stand for? Indicator, informant. Anyway, this is also part of the Vox Media Podcast Network, of which I maintain that our section is best section. Absolutely. I'm Nealai Patel. Paul Miller is here. Hello. Dieter is out this week.

Goodbye. We're replacing him with a rotating cast of luminaries. So Dan is sitting here. Hey, Dan Sefer. Yes. Ashley Carmen is here. Hello. I can't believe you described us as luminaries.

Luminaries. Well, Ashley, I'm excited that you're here because the other podcast in our fleet. The Armada, I've heard you refer to that as. The Armada of two things. Is your show. Why did you push that button? Yeah. Which is going great.

And I think people should listen to it. Tell us about the show real quick. So in the show, we talk about decisions we make with technology and more of the social implications behind them. So our past episodes have been about super likes on Tinder, celebrity likes on Instagram, like going back to when my boyfriend liked a picture of a butt on Instagram. You have to listen to the podcast to know what I'm talking about. Yeah. You got to get in there. It's going great.

What's your next episode about next Tuesday? Next Tuesday, it will be published very early in the morning for all you verge cast listeners. So please subscribe so you can listen. but it's going to be about sharing your passwords to Netflix or Hulu or streaming services with your significant others or friends. Wow. And I will tell you that right before we recorded this show, I was listening to them to do pickups, and it is hilarious.

So listen to that. Yeah, there's a very good story from our audio engineer, Andrew, who does the Vergecast, too. You're going to want to hear this story. But Ashley's here just because I consider Ashley to be my personal emoji expert. and I'm going to make her play with an emoji on the phone live. Wait, could I just say my favorite new emoji for iOS is the brain? Yeah. The brain is great.

And then later in the show, our video director, Phil Esposito, who has made the iPhone 10 videos with us and our huge video team. He's been on a real roller coaster of emotions with this phone because he's been watching me use it this whole week. He's going to join us. But that leads me right into it, which is its iPhone 10 week. Yeah. And it's been a wild ride.

to this on Friday, our review, our full official review will have published. I'm updating the one on the site, and our review video will be up on YouTube, so you can watch it there. The review video at this point, Phil is literally editing it while we record it. It's hitting like 15 to 20 minutes because there's so much, but I think it's going to be good. Is there like a montage where you're like a child and then you get a little older and a little wiser and now you're... Well, there's definitely a montage in which I got the phone on Monday. We published a review on Friday. We took a picture of Nelai when he first got the phone, and we'll take a picture when this review published. I look like old Obama. Yeah, the old Obama picture. So it's been a ride. Explain the situation.

What happened? How did you get the phone? Okay. So usually, I think listeners to Vurchas now, we get things a little bit early. Every now and again, a Vurchase listener is like, Dieter's not talking. I don't know how's the thing.

Like, it's happened. But usually we get things a week or so early. and we get a full period of time to review it so that we can publish a review that's like informed and well thought out. Last week we were talking because we did not have the phone. Yeah, it should be very obvious when these things are happening. But Dan operates most of our review program. Embargoes are pretty normal and they serve a purpose. Readers want reviews to be well informed.

Companies don't want snap judgments. We would like to take our time. They work. There are issues with them, whatever. But the fundamental concept is you get some time. You agree to not talk about it so that you can publish a good thing at the end. I bring it service out of it. Apple this time did something different with the 10.

For better or worse, I actually think it's fine. We had to work really hard, but that's why we're here. Apple gave us the phone on Monday, and they said in 24 hours you can start publishing. They gave other people some other kinds of access. So I think Matt Panzerino at Techron chat it for a week, Nicole Wynn at BuzzFeed. Who is great, by the way. everyone to read herself. I think she's a rising star. She had it for a week and Lantoonoff at Mashbull had it for a week. So they added early and then this was like a controversy that I think

was completely overblown. Apple held a hands-on event for YouTubers, pretty good YouTubers to come in, they have like a loft here in the city. They basically had the same hands-on access that we had at the launch event. And then you got to go early. I think that's great. Like honestly, that's great. I'd watch as much YouTube as anybody. We run a YouTube channel. Go crazy. The thing that I think was hard for us was we wanted to like participate. And I think our audience, I hope wants us to participate. So we like raced up a 24 hour. I had it for 24 hours.

We made a video. So like literally making the video while I'm like unboxing the phone and setting it up. There was a moment like I used a feature for the first time on camera. It's like a lot of that, right? So I can't do battery life testing. I can't do performance testing. I basically like barely got apps installed by the time we had to. Yeah.

Like it was setting up. Like people like we got a question like is. the phone hot. I was like, it's hot as shit right now because it's installing every app I've ever downloaded in history. All of this is fine. I actually had a really good time making that video. It was like, it was that thing where you're like, there's a deadline and you're like, everyone's going to work really hard and come together. That video is great. Then we like decided we're going to publish a review because we can publish a first look review. I've reviewed many products in 24 hours before, actually. Motorola used to be... It's not ideal, but we've done it.

We've done it. Like, Motorola used to be super guilty of this. They would like hand me a phone and be like, tomorrow and I'd be like all right everyone it's a Motorola phone it has a pentile display and it's run it again one more time right so it's like not out of our scope of capability and I was like this is a unique moment for us in that it's rare that I get to hear from the audience while I'm reviewing the thing so we're going to go up with like here's the first draft ask me questions I'll update the review and we'll make a full-on review video with like your questions integrated into it. It's something we've never done before.

So it's a challenge. It's also like a big opportunity. Super excited to take that opportunity. That is all I have done this week is like use the phone, test the phone, monkey with the phone. It's been wild. It's been fun. And like our whole team is like all around us.

Like I, every time I use the phone for like 20 minutes, like another video director like pops up out of a bush and is like, I need the phone and like runs away with it for a while. James Barham is constantly taking test photos with it. So we have the iPhone. 10, the reviews are out, here's what I'm going to say, and then we can like dive into the things. It's a really good iPhone. They didn't actually change a lot about the fact that it's an iPhone. So the way you unlock it is different, and the screen is bigger, and there's an emoji.

Those large fonts. But like, it's an iPhone. You either think that is the best thing in the world, and a lot of people do, or you don't, right? And, like, I think the people who are deep into Android are not going to be swayed by talking pigs. in iMessage, right? And the people who love iOS are not going to be like, this ruined all of my expectations and like buy another phone. But I think the people who are like,

I want a bigger screen in a smaller package, they're going to be tempted by it. And the people who love really beautiful hardware are going to be like, this is really beautiful hardware. Yeah. Once you dive into it, it's the same. The fundamental experience of it is largely the same as using an iPhone.

I think it's really striking. I can't get over it. I remember Dieter was like, don't use the essential phone. You'll hate bezels forever. And I look, the system phone's like, ah, it's fine. Yeah. And don't use the S8. You'll hate bezels forever.

And it's like, I think the S8 looks beautiful, but it's not really my, my aesthetic. Yeah. And there's just something about the iPhone 10 is really getting me aesthetically. So you think it's visual, when you say it's striking, it's visually striking. Visually striking. It's beautiful. Yeah. Well, except for the back.

No, I mean, so what Dan is pointing out, because the back actually looks also just like the iPhone 8. It's glass bag. Yeah, the back's not great. But the camera bump is gigantic. It's gigantic, and the fact that they switch the orientation makes it stand out even more. And we've got, I mean, if you've seen the coverage earlier this week, we've got what Apple's calling the silver one, which is basically the white one. And I think every reviewer has that model. Yeah, I think this is the one they want to show.

And it is not a flattering color on this phone. It's like not a pure white. So like if you compare it to the white on an iPhone 7 or whatever that had a white front, if you compare the white to that to this, this looks dull and dingy. Oh man, we've already scratched the back of this phone. It's got a glass back that you can scratch. It looks dull and dingy. And then the chrome frame, the surgical steel that Apple claims, just kind of looks kind of cheap to me.

I personally ordered a space gray one and I'm very happy. that I did not get the silver model. Yeah, I ordered a space great one, too. Here's the way I think of the parts of the phone that are not the screen. It's a tenuous frame around a portal to, as what Neely points out, iOS 11, which is still a thing.

But it just looks more like a portal than any phone I've seen. Yeah, you know what it is? And I think this is a really interesting decision they made. They didn't curve the screen around the sides like Samsung does, and the bezels are actually pretty thick. like for what they are.

But regularly thick. Yeah. So it's basically a black border with the notch at the top. And then like a beautiful display. And I think the black border actually makes the display pop out. And it makes it look really good. The fact that the display is basically amazing. Like, it helps sell it all. Yeah.

I mean, it's right. I mean, this is like the Johnny Ave line. Like, we just want it to be a whole display. We want the hardware. I'm not paying a lot of attention. But that's just a thing. thing I want. Smokes a huge

spliff and gets in this Ferrari. It's a wets it in Bentley. Yeah. It's an Aston. It's definitely an Aston. It's beautiful. There's no getting around it. The thing that struck me as I've been using it

more and more is it is the aspect ratio of the display is confusing people. So it's a bigger diagonal number. It's 5.8 inches in the iPhone 8 plus is 5.5. but this has a taller aspect ratio, so it's actually smaller.

And it's way more, it's way more like an iPhone 8 than you would expect. It reminds me more of going from the 4 to the 5 than from like the 6 to the 6 plus or whatever. Yeah, it's basically a taller iPhone 8. Like it's the same width as an iPhone 8. But the rounded corners, that's what really confuses me.

The rounded corners mean that you can't, I was trying to develop an application the other day on the Mac on the Mac. And I managed to draw a pixel on the screen. screen. Yeah. You know, in a window, you can draw a pixel on the top left corner. You can draw a pixel on the top right corner.

But on a Mac application, the bottom two corners are slightly rounded, which means I could not draw a pixel there. There's a no-go zone. Yeah. So there's a lot. It's rules. I hate-he just wants to be free. I want to be free.

I mean, I think part of what makes this phone look so striking are these curved corners, but there's a lot of wasted space. Yeah, I mean... Yeah, there's a ton of waste of space. One of the things that bugged me is that up by the notch, like the notch itself doesn't actually bother me all that much. You learn to ignore the notch within minutes.

What I can't ignore is the fact that Apple aligned the status bars and battery and time with the bottom of the notch, leaving all this screen space above them unused. And like, I wish they were just vertically centered between it. I don't think anyone knows what to do with the bunny ears. Like, yeah.

The one thing that truly bothers me about iOS 11 on this phone, apart from a lot of things, is that when you pull down from the left side, it's the notification sheet, and it, like, it pulls down over the thing, over the display, and that makes a lot of sense to me. And then you pull down from the other side, and a control center, like, fades in from nowhere. I just want to point out that. And I just don't understand it. Android had that interaction.

with Android 4.4, Kikat, I believe. And they went back on it because it's a bad interaction. And also, I actually didn't get to this in the review. I don't think it's in there. The only way to see whether your Bluetooth is connected or the battery percentage is to pull down control center. Oh, this annoys a hell on me. Because the notch eats up all that space.

And they have all the space above the icons. You can't put the percentage number on the battery? No. You have to pull down control center and then it shows you what's going on with Bluetooth and it shows you the battery. it back. Paul,

Paul just verbally spiked the screen into the ground. I am always just living life between 20% and die by the battery percent. Like I don't, I don't care about LTE signal. I don't care about Wi-Fi connectivity status. Like all that stuff can like be through a swipe down because if it's a problem, I'm going to look and check it. Battery percentage,

I need to know like as quickly as possible. So I know whether I'm going to make it or not. It's very dire. It's serious business. I mean, you can still see it. Dan, I just imagined your life was like chargers everywhere. Why do you think I have chargers everywhere? I just imagine you would never having a dead phone.

No, no, that's the goal is to never have a dead phone. But in order to never have a dead phone, I need to know what its battery status is. I'm just buying you a battery case. It's going to be fun. He loves wire lives. Are they making a battery case for this thing? I haven't seen one yet. But I'm sure they will.

I mean, I don't. Really? They made one for the six. six and the seven and the eight. Did they? It's all the same case. Yeah, I guess you're right. A lot of people, by the way,

asked about reachability. This whole phone, so the answer, the short answer is it is there. The long answer is that everything about this phone requires you to, like, learn a complex system of moves. It's like wizarding school.

Yeah, so you're like, you swipe up from the bottom, you're like, I got it. Nailed it. I'm going to be so good at using this phone. You figure out face ID, it's like, got to be a little closer to your face than you think.

We get into that. Leveeos saw. Yeah. And then you're like, okay, app switching. I'm into it. And you like swipe up and you hold. And you're like, I didn't get it. All right, I'm going to do it again.

And then like you start to feel it. You're like, okay. All right, that one is a little harder. You got it. And then it's like reachability. And you're like, I, I suck at this phone. What's your success rate on app swiping? So app swiping, you just swipe at the bottom.

No, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't. So far we're at zero percent. You swipe along the bottom. What are you doing? I'm not doing. I'm under pressure.

Very good. There you go. You're swiping apps. It's like I was so good at archery at practice. Now I'm the Olympics. I'm just firing arrows into the stands. I hate when I get to the Olympics. I do way worse than I did in practice.

So swiping. This is the Olympic. This is a phone Olympics. That's how to think of as the Virch cat. You swipe along the bottom. It's super easy. It's fine. That's good.

And then reachability where you would pull the interface down, which is a thing that you desperately need. Because to get to control center, you've got to pull down from the opposite corner. You start halfway on the dock and pull down. I'm getting better at it, but it took me a day or two to figure it out. We forgot about the giant waste of space below the keyboard, too. Oh, yeah. Dan, is this going to be the whole show? Yeah, basically.

Dan hates the phone. Dan hates the phone that he just spent $1,200 on. Yeah. Yeah, when you open Safari or the keyboard, there's a huge buffer at the bottom. Safari has a lot of Chrome at the top. the usable content area on this phone consistently maps to the iPhone 8. A lot of controls get moved into the top and bottom zone,

but you're often looking at a thing, especially if you have apps that aren't optimized, like Gmail, Docs, Spotify, they all run with what I'm calling software bezels. I mean, it looks like, you know, when managing it or TC said this earlier this week, when you open an app that's not optimized, like Google Maps, and you look at it, it looks like an iPhone 3G.

Right, because it's got the cram bustle. It's, I mean, it's, the apps are getting optimized fast. I talked to Apple about this, and I was like, you know, when I moved to the six, it took forever for app developers to update their apps to the six. And you'd see the big, the big time and like this big silly keyboard. That's all still there if you find an app that's like, it's like the big silly keyboard is still there on this phone. But Apple's point was, we think it's going to go faster, we're helping developers.

We also went through the pain with the 6 of rolling out auto layout in the dev kit. So auto layout will take you a long way there. What makes them think it's going to go faster? Like if anything, when the 6th came out, it was the new iPhone and the new iPhone that everyone bought, right? This is one of three new iPhones that, you know, half the people or, you know, whatever, buying new iPhones this season or over the next year, maybe buying an 8 or an 8 plus, and it doesn't matter if the app is the day. Right. So they think it's obvious that the people who buy the 10 are like early adopters. They're very vocal.

They clearly have money to burn. So if you're an app developer and you want to like do an app purchases or all the things that you do, subscriptions, you're incentivized to like service your richest customers basically. And then the other, so that's one piece of it. So there's like incentive there that's financial. And then it's just easier because iOS. since the time of the iPhone 6 has gotten a lot better at laying out. Okay.

Right? So the auto layout system inside of the dev kit is just more useful. That's their argument. We're going to see. You know, the indie developers are going to be the ones all over it. Like, they're going to be the ones updating their apps and they're going to, because they get a press cycle out of it, all the iOS blogs. You know, we'll cover it. We'll even cover some of the more interesting ones.

And it's good for them and they'll get more customers from that. I'm more concerned about like Google updating it suite and Microsoft. And all of, like, the big companies of apps that, like, I use all the time and rely on every day and are kind of slow and lumbering and take their time doing things. Like, you know, Google's apps are, like, they're kind of good on iOS sometimes, but they take forever to get new iOS features. Like, if you're on an iPad and you want to use slide over and split screen and stuff like that. Like, like, Google apps, like, took forever to get that, if they even have it at this point. Right. So that's weird.

The last Google app update for the iPad actually, They replace the entire interface with a screen that just says, please buy a pixel book. I thought that was very disturbing. Chase updated its app yesterday and semi-PR. It's like, now we support Face ID and opened it. Sure does. Giant software bezels. So, Chase, let's be clear here.

Chase is done. Yeah. They shipped Face ID support. The bezels will remain. Yeah. And like, that's my point. It's like the big apps, like the companies that have zero incentive to update their apps, Google, Microsoft, Chase.

these established companies that aren't even selling their apps, they're free apps, and you're going to use them anyways. Like, they're not going to, like, that's what I'm worried about, waiting for those updates. Yeah. The one I keep bringing up, this is actually super funny. I was texting Waltz about the phone, you're super interested in it. And I was like, I'm worried about this app thing. It's like, it'll be fine.

And I was like, I bet you, like, $10 that Delta will not have updated its app in a year. Because it took Delta two and a half years to remember that the iPhone 6 was out. It's like, I'm always on flight. I'm like, fuck you, Delta. Like, should I tweet at them? This is ridiculous. Like, no. Delta doesn't care.

You're still using. Anyway, so I say this to Mossberg, and he just replies, well, it's a fucking airline, Neelai. But on the whole, I think that Apple's argument was there's going to be the first immediate wave, then there's going to be like the fast middle. That's what they were calling it. And I think Google will be in that fast middle. Like YouTube already updated.

Okay. It's in Spotify's best interest. interest to update, but they'll probably pull it off. And then there's going to be the trailing, and everyone's going to have a different selection of the apps that trail. And if you follow, if a lot of your usage is in that, the reality is this phone is going to feel a lot like an iPhone 8 to you.

You're going to open a bunch of apps and you're going to get that screen size. How many apps are having trouble with the bunny ears or whatever we're calling them? Because I know there were some when we first got it, like day one, like dark sky was not laying out properly and stuff like that. Uber had that logo under the brain. Yeah, Uber still doing... None of this is a huge.

Dark Sky's still broken. I was hoping it updated. Love you guys, Dark Sky. Great app. Yeah, I mean, there's a reason it's on my home screen. Of all apps. Please update that. It's going to be fine.

I'm not actually worried about the bunny ears being... You don't use that a lot. Overall, the screen is this massive upgrade, and whatever little price you pay is the early adopter price. The whole world hasn't followed you down this road, but you have a beautiful screen. You're going to be great. You're going to love it. I think it looks way better.

than Samsung screens. I think it looks way better than a Pixel 2XL screen. The Pixel 2 Excel screen to me is like a deal breaker. I have one now. Oh, absolutely, I agree. And I just like, I don't like looking at it.

My SIM card's still in my pixel one, which by the way is currently my favorite phone. Because it's just like a wonderful thing. And I have one and it took so long to get it and it's like so special to me. I don't know. I put my sim in this and it automatically reenrolled me an I message.

Yeah, boy. And my friend. It was like, welcome home. It told all your friends. It's like he's a blue bubble again. My friends are like, you're a blue bubble again. I was like, oh, man, I can't do this with you. And then I started sending an emoji, and it was like, I love this.

I love it. So maybe it's going to stay in here. Who knows? All right, we're going to take a quick break. Our video director, Phil Esposito, is going to join us after the break. Let me read this ad this quick, and then Phil's going to join us. This episode of Vergecast brought to you by Miundis. And I'm going to say this.

I'm just going to say it. Meundies makes feel good undies your butt will be proud to wear. They will be the most comfortable pair of underwear. will ever own. So check it out yourself, go to meyundies.com slash verge. They've got tons of styles and patterns to choose from for both men and ladies. Meandis has the perfect fit for any personalities. The meandis feeling is unmatched because they use a naturally soft fabric that is three times softer than cotton. So for a limited time only, check out Miandi's first ever glow in the dark print, lights out. Why not update your underwear drawer and glow at the same time? And if underwear

isn't your thing, Miandis also makes socks. They're the softest socks in the world. So to get 20% off the best and softest underwear and socks who will ever own, potentially glow in the dark underwear. You also get free shipping and 100% satisfaction guarantee. Go to meundies.com slash verge. That is meundies.com slash verge. Does your underwear glow in the dark? It doesn't yet. Okay. Okay. Hear that? That was me ordering. I heard. We're back. Phil. Hi. Hello. I don't think Phil's ever been on the show before. I have not. So Phil, for listeners of the show, Phil's our lead director

in the tech group in our video team. He's the one who makes a lot of the reviews that you've been seeing. He, I would say he and I have been on a process, a journey of discovery together because, like, he was, if you watched our preview video and there's me talking in the car, that's Phil in the car with me

as I'm unboxing the phone. Day and night, Phil and I have been playing with this phone together. Phil, I would describe your current situation as a roller coaster of emotions. Well, I mean, my current situation is in wanting to buy the phone. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, a little bit.

I was going to pre-order the phone. I was super, I've been all hype since this phone came, you know, I was out in California for it. I was like, this is it. I'm buying it. I've been using a picture. For the launch. So if you watched our hands-on video, Phil was at the launch event with us and he's

when to shot the hands-on video. Yeah, and the only upsetting part about that was I didn't remember actually touching the phone when I was there. Those days are terrible. Right. But we're back and we had the phone. and it's cool, but I don't think I'm going to get it anymore. Why is that?

Because it's like fine. Wow. It's not, that's what I mean by a roller coaster. 20 minutes from now, Phil's going to be like, I'm so hype about this phone. It depends because it's a cool phone, but at the same time, it's like still just a phone, and I thought it was going to be a little bit cooler, but then I'll do something, and, like, I'm looking at it right now and it looks awesome. It really does look awesome.

It's like the best-looking phone, and my whole point to that was, you know, Android phones that do the bezelist thing are kind of like fine because, you know, every Android phone looks different. But when Apple does it, it's a totally new look. So I don't know. Seriously. I'm going to have you back in 20 minutes and you're going to be off the charts. Well, I'm currently editing.

So I'm going to be. He's a little low. So here's what I really wanted to talk to you about. I'm happy that you shared your story with us. But we published our preview video. Sorry, I'm just being a journey. No, I'm, I'm, thank you for telling us your journey. I care deeply about your feelings.

But we published a preview video. In that preview video, I had problems outside in bright sunlight and weird lighting. You have been watching me unlock this phone, put it down, pick it up, and unlock it again. Do you have Phil here to see if you're a truth teller? Yes. I'm just here to verify. I definitely feel like no one believes me. All right.

Phil, confirm or deny. Sometimes it was hard for Delinelline to unlock the phone. Confirmed. I'm telling the truth No one believed me Phil Confirm or did not To sometimes

Nil I exaggerate Sometimes Oh Interesting Interesting I see what's happening I stood next to Nilai many times this week Waiting for him to unlock his phone

And he's not exaggerating a time Yeah I mean when we were shooting That's right but Dan hates the phone This is like ridiculous See you guys got me all wrong I hate out of love. I just want the unused space to be used.

Dude, I hate out of love. That is the title of your memoir in the airport, dude. The Dan Seaford story. I wanted to unlock from love. I want the unused space to be used. Like, yeah. That's all I want.

Phil. I mean, look, when we were shooting the impressions video, it was like clearly hit or miss. There was no, like, purposely holding it far away. We were like, just in your natural, doing off-camera, the inconsistency, like, made everything that we shot, you know, accurate. Yeah. Here's what I've learned because now I went and talked to Apple about it.

They apparently had their engineers watching our preview video and, like, trying to do, like, measure where my hands were. Here's my final take on it after this week. Face ID works. It is actually a really useful and nice upgrade over touch ID in a lot of ways. First of all, it worked. Phil's just like holding the phone in my face. So, yeah, if you pick up somebody else's phone and point out of their face, you can lock their phone. Great, upgrade for that particular use case.

It's way simpler to set up than touch ID. It requires virtually no understanding to use in the way that touch ID sometimes required some understanding to use. Like, I've got to put my finger here, it's going to lock, I'm opening it. You just look at the phone, it's unlocked. It's almost like not having a passcode. So a huge upgrade just in getting people to secure their phone. It is fast in almost every lighting condition and it like works.

It never failed so bad that I was like, I've got to put in my basket. But it changes how you hold the phone, which is funny because it leads to a lot of you're holding it wrong jokes. So if you're like me and you're always checking your phone just out of your pocket, you have to move how you hold the phone.

You have to bring it closer to your face and be more intentional about it. If you're in weird lighting or in particular walking, you definitely have to like try harder in a way that you did not have to try with touch ID. And I, the New York Times published their review today too. And they noted walking around in sunlight didn't always work. Do you wish there was a fingerprint sensor on the back?

No. It has not occurred to me that I want that. Okay. So that's what I mean. Like it is a good and useful upgrade over touch ID. Apple is on the warpath. I think if you read some of the friendlier publications to Apple, they're making a lot of comparisons.

to touch ID in the early days. But I think that's somewhat disingenuous in that we are well past the early days of touch ID. So if you're here with a good thing that works and you hit reset, you can't be like, but remember three years ago? It's just like three years ago. Like you've set an expectation of how things should work

and now you're hitting reset. You've got to just accept. You've got to just take the lumps. But I think the lumps are worth it because it mostly works. But sometimes it doesn't. Like, I woke up this morning. It was early.

I wasn't wearing my glasses. I picked up my phone and, like, had it close to my face. It didn't unlock. It was too close to my face. So I had to, like, change how I held the phone this morning, which is fine. But you're going to notice that a lot. To be fair, I have lots of, I don't know, I get, like, sweaty thumbs. I have lots of problems with touch ID.

Maybe I didn't set it up right. Like, there are a lot of times where it's just my phone is, like, wet because I'm in the rain or something. that there are a lot of times that I end up putting in my pasco. Yeah. And then the coolest thing we did with Face ID is we, Phil and Tom, our Conner's other director, figured out we can just get a night vision camera. So we have, well, explain it. So if you use any camera with a infrared mode, basically,

which like turns on night mode, and you shoot, we figure this out from the Xbox Connect, because the Connect does it the same exact way, which just like makes total sense that this is a Baby Connect. It shows all the dots on your face, and it looks really, really insane. Do you have to, if you're using a night vision camera, because typical night vision camera has its own, like, flashlight of... So ours just, like, you can turn that on and off.

So we just, like, keep it off. But, yeah, normally a night vision camera is, like, projecting an IR light. But this one's, like, really great. Which one? What do we have? Some Canon, like, Handycam. Literally, it's, like, silly. I think it's, like, $200.

I thought it used to be like a Sony thing. Yeah, Sony had night shots. Oh yeah, there we go. It was green. Famously green. There was the Sony's. I want to say there was Panasonic's night mode that got in trouble because it actually worked like an x-ray mode and you could see people's underwear.

This is like a controversy 10 or 15 years ago with camcorders. This was a controversy panasonic ginned up to sell camcorders. That didn't work. So the way it works is super cool. and you can watch it in our video because we figured out how to tape it. So anytime you do a wake action, like you raise the phone, you tap the screen,

click the button, the system engages for like five seconds. It flashes the IR Illuminator, which is a fancy word for flashlight, I've discovered. If you watch our videos, that's the thing that's blinking. If the IR camera sees a face, the dot projector just like blinks on

really fast. It's really fast. But it's like more than a face. It's your eyes. Because if you're pointing it at your face, your eyes are closed, it's still just the giant orb of light. But as soon as you open up your eyes, it flicks all the dots on right away. So it's like looking for your eyes. Yeah, it's looking for attention. You can turn that off in accessibility, but it's looking for your eyes.

So if it sees your eyes, it flashes the dot projector. It takes a super fast picture with the IR camera. The dots go off, the camera is off. That gets hashed into a mathematical model and then compared to the model, the hash, stored in the secure enclave on the A11. It's like a lot of steps, and it works really, really fast. Yeah. The important point, or one important point is that even though you have to open your eyes to trigger it and make it work,

it's not using your iris or your eyes as identifiers like, say, Samsung's system with the Node8 does. It's using the entire face. Yeah, so it's creating the step map of your face, hashing it into basically long-string numbers, compares the numbers. If you use an emoji or portrait mode on the front cam, it just keeps the dots on all the time. And we have the demo of the Snapchat app, which is like the better mass. It's not out yet. It's just like a demo mode version that we have.

It keeps the dots on all the time. And there's like a little controversy here. Reuters published a thing that's like app developers get this data. So it's not the face ID data, which is the hash that unlocks the phone. It's this other data about like muscles moving. It's the same stuff Animoji does. They basically, I looked at the API. They give you basically a 3D mesh of a face.

Yeah. It's like, here's a 3D mesh. do whatever you want with this 3D mesh of a face. That's wild. But it's really cool and it works really well. Like it's, is this a good replacement for touch ID? Is it going to work? Is it going to fail?

So I don't know. The inconsistencies I've experienced are all about me having to adapt to the phone, which I have many, many feelings about. But if you are willing to adapt to the phone, it just seems to work. What's your takeaway? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely like at the end of the day, all it comes down to is adapting to the phone, which, like, YouTube comments.

are super quick to say that, like, that's fine. But, like, in use, it is, like, pretty annoying. And anytime... I mean, it is. Like, why... Like, there's no reason why you should have to change your whole life to do something that you've been doing for years, just, like, unlocking your phone.

But, like, other than that, if you follow Apple's criteria, it works fine. Yeah. The roller coaster with Phil, by the way, is very deep. Yeah, I'm actually pre-ordering one right now. This is specifically why I want to... Like we're in the valley. So we're going to come out of it.

I'm buying four. Yeah. When the week started, Phil was like, I'm so excited. We get this phone. It's finally here. We've got a pixel right now. He's like, I hate this thing. He's chucking it in the trash can.

I get it, man. I like the pixel. I wouldn't say I hate the pixel. Pixel is like solid. It's the best Android phone is having a pixel too. Actually, I forgot that one's out. Because of the screen. All right.

Phil, we're going to let you go because you've got to edit the video. I do need to edit this video. If you are listening to this. please go on YouTube and watch all of Phil. And the rest are our video teams. Andrew did all the audio on the video. Yeah, I mean, this was a huge effort from everybody. Will, Joel, our art director, did a bunch of crazy animations, including the opening

shot. It's sick. It's really awesome. It's so cool. Okay. We're going to let you get back to it, Phil. We're going to let you get back to read an ad. Ash is going to come back and talk about animojis.

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Yeah. That one sounds like you're just kind of a long for the ride, though. I really liked an idea or a dream is just an idea without a website. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, the future's coming to make it brighter with Squarespace. That's this week's. Anyway, you can go to Squarespace.com for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use the offer code Verge to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

That's Squarespace.com offer code Verge. All right. We're back. Ashley's back. Hello, I'm back. The headphones are warm from Phil's head and it's nice because it's cold in here. It's cold in here. Sasha, what do you think of the phone? It's honestly, like, what Paul said earlier totally resonated where it looks best when it's at the home screen or the lock screen. It's like, wow. In the Apple store, you're going to be like,

wow. But then once you start clicking around into apps, it's like, hmm, this is not as beautiful as I thought it was. Like, when you went into Spotify, I was like, this almost looks worse than my 6S that I'm using. Wow, harsh. Dan's just hating, man. I agree. I think it looks lovely when it's sitting on the table

and the screen is on. Wow. Me and Dan agree. Home screen number one. Yeah, the home screen looks like... The home screen is great. I'm starting to... I'm quite taken with it.

All right. So actually, I'm going to ask you a question. Yeah. I think an emoji, and we're going to send these to fill. I think an emoji are easily the best feature of this phone. And I'm in love with them.

I think they're, like, I'm just watching myself talk right now and I'm a little fox and it's delightful. So what does the fox say? I'm leaving, but. Please, Dan, you have done enough today. But you are the one with the hip internet culture podcast. So I want to ask you what you think of this situation. And you, I think you used one once real fast. Yeah. But this is like your first deep experience with it. So this is real time. I didn't get to do a full range. Yeah. Which an emoji are you, Ashley? Okay, so you can choose between a monkey robot, a cat, a dog, an alien, a fox, a poop, a pig, a panda, a bunny. There's actually a lot.

A rooster, or a chicken or something, or a unicorn. Honestly, I feel most attracted to either the cat or the panda. The panda's good. I like the panda because it has fangs. Yeah. Which is kind of concerning. So Apple told me, by the way, the an emoji are terrible at winking. Well, I said to Apple, these an emoji are terrible at winking, and they're like, we know. And then they hinted that they would. God, it looks like you have a Twitch or something. Like, if you have a friend who's bad at winking or you're bad at winking, the an emoji are worse. And you know how friends who are bad at winking are hilarious? Equally hilarious.

They're not bad at winking. They can't wink. You can get them to wink. It takes a lot of doing. I feel like the wink is the one thing I would want to do with an animoji before sending it. So Apple is like, that would be great for an upgrade. We know. We know about the winking situation.

Okay. The alien's amazing. The alien's real good. Because this doesn't have eyebrows, so it's fun. The monkey is real good. I'm asking, Ashley's so distracted. Are these as important as I think they are? It's just going to be fun.

Yeah. They're great. Like, I can totally see myself if I had an iPhone 10, spamming people. Where can you use these? Is it just IMessage? No, this is actually notably for Apple. Anywhere where MOV files can be played. Yeah, so if you have Android friends, you can send them an MMS, IMessage.

obviously you send one and then there's like a little checkmark that's like you're still in jail but this is delightful and then if you just want to export it as an MOV you can just get it out of there but what what possible relevance would an emoji have versus like if you could do something similar in Snapchat well so that's what I'm just thinking it's like I have multiple friends who think that the world is like fascinated with furies like there's this whole theory about like filters as animals and we just want to be like first And I don't know. I don't know. Wait, please complete that song. Go on. Well, it's just really weird that every, like, Instagram filters for stories and Snapchat's AR filters, most of them, the most popular ones are animals. And it's like, what's up with our fascination with becoming animals?

And then that ties into, like, furry culture where it's like, are we all just secretly wanting to be furries, maybe? Apparently my persona is a fox because that is my an emoji. I think. It's that or the monkey. Well, yeah, there you go. I don't know. Yeah.

Sorry, I got to just try to think about, apparently there's also this acting test where you can determine your inner and outer animal. And I was, someone told me my inner animal was a koala. And I was like, that's so inaccurate. Anyway. What's wrong with koala? What?

Characteristic is this is what koala have? The laziest of the bears? Yeah, I was like, damn, am I that lazy? I don't know about koalas. Anyway, the key difference is that on Snapchat, yes, you can save the files, but they never look as good. Like, I'm not going to text you a snap.

Snapchat. Same with the Insta stories. Yeah, it's not true. It was built from the ground up. This is made for iMessage sharing, which is the most, and just sharing in general, but I message particularly is where you're having those group chats with your friends. This is a good move. You could just be like, here's what I think of that. Alien face. Boom. So what's... Alien face attempting to wink.

Yeah. They're missing a feature to make that work, which is they always have sound. You can't mute the an emoji. They make sound? Yeah, so what you're supposed to do... These are like voice memos. Their voice message. What you're supposed to do is be like, so when it automatically reenrolled me and I message on my group text with my friends, like, they all got a monkey screaming.

I'm back on the blue bubbles, which was great and a delight. And then my friend Bippin immediately texted me back and was like, that was worth $1,000. Oh, man, you know. But you say you can't mute them. So what I want to do is just like do the big eyes. As just like a single. Yeah, just like a reaction. So what if you, like my phone lives on silent.

Like, do I never hear them or? No, they, they sit there. You just unsilent and play them. But, like, I don't want it unsilent. Well, then you don't get to participate in animoji. How do you listen to music on your phone? Yeah, Dan. Well, the music plays on silent mode.

Like, you hit play and music plays. I'm just curious as to what happens with the animoches and I guess we can find out. All right, let's do some silence. Okay, I just want to say that this is an infinitely better effect than iOS 10 with the, like, blow-up test. Yeah. Sent with lasers. Like, this is so much better and it's going to be used so much more widely than lasers and

I'm back on the blue bubbles. Yep. Wow. Eli wasn't lying about that text. Yeah, of course it's my voice. You are the emoji. And it just loops for it.

It just loops forever. Forever and ever and ever. Oh my gosh. We have to turn that off. This is the worst radio in history. Can we update the verge of you and it's just that? I really did send it to all my saying. Back on the blue bubble.

levels. This is what my friends expect from me. Is you're the man now dog still a website? Anyway, so the answer is it plays when a phone's unmute. But you have to click the icon. It's interesting to me that you really love Animoji because when they announced the iPhone 10, I remember I wrote a piece about how they were really marketing selfies and Animoji. And I was like, this is all for, I'm going to use the word, millennials,

who love to take pictures of themselves and to text. And it's cool that you really like it too because it's... Because you're old. Because I can see you slowly dying every day. As a member of Gen X, which is been slowly dying since the late 80s. But I assume you're not, you know,

are you taking a ton of selfies on the rag and sending emoji and reading into, like, the deeper message of the emoji that was sent to you by your wife? I'm sure not. The only emoji my wife ever sends me is the lady who's like, stop. Because I'm like, what if we name our daughter's shadow? Oh my gosh.

Absolutely appropriate emoji for that. That's like the main emoji. It's the two hands crossed. That's that one. That's like the main. I think that's like just like her keyboard is just that button. Most frequently used. Just that one.

Yeah, I don't really send a ton. I don't know. It's never occurred to me that having built a career, on the use of words that I should then transition to pictures. I have tried to take selfies, but I'm not very good at it. I've been trying a lot because that's portrait mode. Yeah, I wanted to hear about the selfie portrait mode. Well, you should try one.

Tell me if you think it's good. I think that Pixel 2 does a way better job of portrait mode selfies. I don't think this portrait camera is any good. It's the same portrait camera as ever. It's just lighting up the true depth. dots. So the dots are on right now. When you do an emoji, the dots are on. And it's fine. It works. It blurs out the back end. I think the pixel does a way better job with the front cam. The portrait photos from the rear cameras, way better on the iPhone. And then Dan and James

Baram, our creative director and Becca, one of our other video directors. And Corey, like, just a lot of people staring at comparison photos today from the iPhone 8, the iPhone 10, the Note 8, and the Pixel 2. and no one agreed on anything, basically. No, we could not reach consensus. I will say when my question, the thing that drove people to a decision and a consistent decision was when I said to people,

when looking at pictures of themselves, James had taken with all the phones, which one would you post on Instagram? Most people picked the Pixel 2, which I think is fascinating. Because the pixel 2 is way more aggressive with contrast. I think it takes more evocative photos. And James is always telling me

the pixel 2 gives him more to work with. Yeah. The iPhone takes great photos. I don't think they're bad. I think the pixel 2 is just a little bit ahead of that curve in terms of evocative photos. Dan does not agree with me. Well, I agree that the pixel images are more evocative or whatever you want to say because they do have more aggressive contrast.

But I think of when I'm taking a portrait or a picture of a person, that's not what I want because it's not a flattering look for a lot of portraits. So in my take was when we were looking at the portraits side by side, I often liked the iPhone 8s or the iPhone 10's portrait image the best because it had nicer skin tone rendition. It wasn't as aggressively sharp. Like the pixel wasn't oversharpened, but it was like if it had been sharpened for a landscape photo

as opposed to a portrait. And if you do sharpening after the fact as a photographer, Generally for portraits, you are trying not to go too sharp because it's not a flattering look on skin. And so the iPhone wasn't aggressive there. The color was a little better, and it was just a more pleasing portrait image. I prefer my portrait images to be gritty and realistic

and look like the person just had like a hard night on the town. And that's why I like the pixel. But when we were like, which one would you gram right now? Consistently the answer was the pixel. I mean, a lot of people were wrong, but yes. Danny, really playing a character on this episode of the first line. The stage lighting looks real bad. I just got lost into that.

While Nealai was talking about something, I was watching Ashley play with the portrait mode camera on the front, and I kind of like tried to photo bomb her photo a little bit, and she switches over to the stage lighting mode, and it just blacks me all. Wait, so you were playing with it. What do you think? The portrait mode on the selfie mode is fine. I mean, fine. Like a selfie doesn't have to be the best photo in the world. If I look good in it, that's all I care about. And as far as I'm concerned, if the background's blurred and the attention's on me, okay.

But stage lighting. No, that's bad. And I hope that never takes over Instagram. So when we reviewed the eight, how's like this is going to be everywhere? I've seen it zero time. Because it's bad. Have you seen it on yours? I mean, my feed is mostly like pictures of other people's kids.

Part of it is not a lot of people own the 8 or 8 plus because most of the people that would have bought it in September have waited for the 10. But the other part is it looks bad. Dan, just a hate. I know, like. Dan, name something you like. I love the display of the iPhone 10. No, a complete product that you like. He loves peanut butter cups.

Yeah, peanut butter cups are delicious. Oreos. Most Oreos are delicious. Not all of them. There's nuance. You can't say life is not, you know, yes or no questions. But like, you know, stage lighting is like one of those things where it's like, I can't believe it's shipped in the stage. And you are listening to this show and you think that I'm the cranky one.

I just want you to know that I am well-tempered every day in my job at Dan Sieper. I'm not cranky. I just want things to be better. And Dan sits across from Paul and I. And it's seriously like the home improvement fence. It's like, it's like, what you guys getting hyped about something over there? Oh, no. No, no, no.

Let me deflate that hype bubble for you. All right. We're coming to the end here. I assure you we will be talking more about the iPhone 10 in the weeks to come. But Paul, every week. Yeah. Without fail. Oh, and Ashley's here.

The circuit breaker duo. Yeah. Every week, Paul does a segment. What's it called? It's called can form an emotional bond with members of the household while providing them with love, affection, and the joy of nurturing and raising a companion. That's catchy. Okay, that's the whole thing.

Sony's back. Back with the Ibo. Ibo 2017. Yes. The dog? The robot dog. It's a real animal themed show today. That they killed.

They killed it. I've been so, so Sony had like the most advanced consumer robotics. Yeah, late 90s, early 2000 Sony's was the ish. And they just completely, because remember, Who is it? Creo? That was a dinosaur, right? No, no, no, no. No. Crio is their humanoid? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This guy.

You'd see him, like, dancing and stuff, but they never actually, like, sold him. Like, he think he was in, like, a, he was in, like, a music video. Don't call it in. It. There you go. Sorry. Don't gender the robots. I say it every week. I'm always gendering the robots.

Yeah, they just, like, they just, They were cutting back back in the mid-2000s, and they just stopped making robots. It's been really sad. And now they're back with a new Ibo. It's only for Japan right now. The Ivo is beloved. Yeah. Well, this one looks very belovedable.

It has the thing. Yeah, it looks like an actual dog. It has LCD eyes. And I don't know. Sometimes LCDIs can be a little creepy. Was it you? I feel like I was just talking to someone on the verge about these robotic dogs. we didn't know about this announcement because I was saying I owned like a rip-off Sony robot dog named Poochie.

Yeah. Who were we talking to about? We definitely had this conversation. Yeah, and I was like Pucci was real. But anyways, I'm very excited. It's going to be like $1,700. It's got a subscription fee so that they can make it smarter using the cloud. It's basically going to use machine learning to learn how to be more adorable to you. How much does it cost? $1,700. You buy a real dog for that. January 11th, 2018.

17 real dogs. In Japan. 1,700 real dogs. Where do dogs come from? Also, there's an optional air bone. No, eye bone. Eye bone. Yeah.

It's like a bone. I'm into it. We've got to get one. That's got to be on the Cirker Breaker show. That's the move. It's only in Japan. Sam Bifert gets to have the most fun. He does have the most fun.

Although I will say the giant speakers you brought on the Cirquebreaker show the other day. The huge Sony one, also I think only in Japan, because not out here yet. I think Sony's willing to send it. Only in Japan and also in the middle of our newsroom. Yeah, it's not looking. It's still there. No one knows how to send it back. We have a lot of giant speakers.

Okay, there's a little bit of additional phone news. So here's what I say. I know we have not nearly talked about the entire iPhone 10, But here's what I'd like you to do if you're listening. Watch the video. It's on YouTube. Read the review. It's very long.

It's on the website. Send us even more questions. Dearly back next week. I'm sure we're going to talk about this phone again. But there's a little bit of other news that I just want to wrap up with, which originally Dan pitched us that the entire show should be about the HTCU 11. I thought that would be an interesting topic of conversation for an hour. Well, here's the... How?

Well, here's the one bit that I just want to bring. up. Vlad scoop this today. The HCCU11 was originally supposed to be the Pixel 2. I'm going to correct you one little bit there, and it's an important distinction. It's the new U11 plus that was announced this morning. Because the U11 was announced earlier this year, that had

nothing to do with the pixel. But the U11 plus that was announced this morning, it's a 6 inch 18 by 9 display. Basically, it's like the U11 from earlier this year, but it's got a edge to edge display, bezelist display or whatever you want to call those.

And Vlad, as you noted, reported that that was originally going to be the Pixel 2xel before Google switched paths and then HGC took it and then redeveloped it into the U11 plus, which is pretty wild. Why did they do that? My guess, and Vlad has a very similar proposition in the article, is Google is super hot on Daydream, even though nobody uses it. Which is their VR system. Nobody uses it.

It's not popular. Don't get any impression that it is. But Google wants its phones that say Google on them to support Daydream the best that it possibly can. And that means it uses an OLED display. And HTC has not used OLED displays in its phones regularly at all, if at all, in a long time. And it doesn't have the clout with the component suppliers to get the OLED screens into its phones, even though they were able to do it with Samsung OLEDs. or Samsung OLEDs last year for the Pixel 1.

That said, it meant that Google chose OLED, went with LG to build the phone, got an LG OLED, and look at where that wig got us. So maybe they should have forgotten about Daydream for a minute. I don't know. The U-11 looks very nice. I've got one right here. I got a U-11, not a plus,

but the original U-11 right here. And you like it. I think it is a very good performing phone at a good price. But every time I pick it up, I think it feels super cheap. It feels slimy. Yeah. I mean, have you held?

Let me hold the slime phone. So my question with the U11 plus story. She's just making a face. It's the reason that U11 feels slimy is because it's got this like curved glass back, which looks very cool striking when it's brand new, and as soon as you touch it, it gets really fingerprinting and gross. And so the U11 plus is almost the exact same thing. And I just wonder what a Google version of that phone would have looked like,

because surely it would not have had an all glass back. would have been metal and partial glass. I mean, I think we're just in a moment. Dieters are making this point over and over again. Like, every phone is compromised in some way. Yeah, that's for sure. I think, you know, so the Pixel 2 XL has the screen issue. The Samsung Galaxy S8 has some Pixpea button.

It does. In Bixby. The essential phone has a bad camera. The iPhone 8 is not the iPhone. 10. That's its essential flaw. And the iPhone 10 is just very expensive. I don't, I think a lot of people are like, the notch is a break. It's not. It's fine. It's just really, really expensive. And you're going to pay this like early adopter tax of all these apps not being up to for a while. In addition to what you're actually physically laying out for the phone. Yeah. But that's, if you got the

money, you're going to buy the phone. You're going to be very happy. But there's not like the, just get this one and be fine. The way the iPhone 4 in my mind was for so long to just pay the money for the iPhone 4. It is by far the best product. I mean, you could say that all the way to like the iPhone 6S, I think. It's like hands down, pay the money for the iPhone.

You're going to get a good experience. If you want to be weird and use an Android phone, do that, but that's young. Yeah. So it's a moment, but I think this, the 10, I'm just like, I've used it all week. I have not, in the way that when I use the iPhone, the iPhone 8, the little one,

I found myself just wanting the plus because I wanted the screen size. I haven't found myself in that zone with this yet. The face ID stuff works. I think next week we're going to talk a lot about adaptation to the phone because I'll have another week of using it. I think all of Apple's products demand that you change your life around them now in a way that I find increasingly ridiculous. Right? So like there's no headphone jack on this phone. Apple's solution to that is that you buy some of their headphones.

They created a problem, they sell you a solution. All of their laptops was like Dongle City. By the way, Helen Havlack is our, I think she was on your show last week. She's our editorial director. She's writing a piece for us, which she rarely does, because she's so incensed that you cannot buy a good, cheap USBC headphone adapter. They're all like crazy expensive. Like we just live in this world where all these products are suddenly demanding,

literally adapters, if not like physical. or lifestyle adaptations to them. And it's just like, that's the thing I'm thinking about the most right now. Right? Like Apple's laptops, the podcast director at Vox Media, Neshaat,

every time I see her, she's got a new 15-inch MacBook Pro with a little USBC dongle with a USBC clucked into it because there are like very few USBC thumb drives in the world. Like we're just in that zone with these things. And I read a lot of other coverage of the iPhone 10 this week.

A lot of it is very, very, glowing to the point where some of it is like literally a fucking romance novel. I'm just to be honest with you. And to me, I just keep coming back to the fact that this is a product that the richest company in the world wants $1,000 from you in order to own. And it's a product. It's the same set of tradeoffs as literally any other product that you might buy. It has some very big ideas, particularly on what the cameras are for in terms of unlocking

in AOR, all the stuff that Apple's doing. but if you're not just pretty dead sober about you spent some money, did you get that value back? And what is it asking of you? You're going to end up in a week. You're going to tie yourself in knots. So we're going to keep talking to this phone because I think it's really interesting. But more and more, I think I'm fascinated by how much this technology asks us to adapt to it

instead of being adapted to us, which coincidentally is like what your whole show is about. It's like emergent behaviors around the thing. It comes full circle. It's all full circle. Wait, I have a question. Yeah. So after staring into, as Paul described it, the portal for a week, does my 6S look ancient to you?

No, because it looks like an iPhone 8. No. You know, my other phone, so this phone, like I said, every 10 minutes, somebody takes this phone away from me to, like, shoot a picture of it or, like, shoot some video or something. And my backup phone has been my pixel all week, and I have not picking up a pixel one, not a pixel two. And I keep picking up my pixel one and using it.

It's fine. Like, I don't feel like, oh, my God, these puzzles are killing me. And I think if you're going from this phone, the six, the seven, the eight, to the ten, you're going to perceive this massive difference in your life. If you already had a big phone, you're going to perceive that you're now holding a smaller thing. Right. And like that difference is not quite as much. Right.

It's just like a physical, the physical thing you're holding got smaller. It's not the portal didn't get bigger. So it's just kind of where my head's at with that. But it doesn't look ancient because this is also like the most modern phone Apple cells. Like its other flagship looks just like that without a headphone jack, which is a huge mistake. Is that it? I just was reading our website. Great headline went up right when we started recording.

Google is apparently shipping some pixel 2xels without an operating system. What are they doing? No blotware. What are they doing? Oreo is really good. I love using Oreo. Well, you know, sometimes you get a phone and it doesn't have it. It's just like, how are they blowing it with this phone?

It's so disappointing. I think we should also say Razor launched its first phone this week. It did. It looks like a square. It looks like a bright. It is an enormous platter of a phone. It has one cool redeeming feature, and that is the display technology runs at 120 hertz,

which they worked with Google to enable Android to run at 120 frames per second. So it's basically the IPF. iPad Pro 10.5's Pro Motion To play. But does it ramp down again? And it ramps down. It's on the fly. So like if you're just holding the phone sitting there reading a web page, it's not, it'll scale down. As soon as you interact with it, it ramps back up. That's awesome. And if you are watching a movie or something

that's not at 120 frames per second, like 24 frames or second, it will scale accordingly appropriately. It's very cool. The future of everything. Yes. It's the coolest thing about that phone. And the phone itself is basically, yeah, the phone is basically a tech demo. So what I'm excited is seeing that tech make it to actual devices I want to use. Yeah. You mean you don't want the Razor-branded dungle that comes with it? Yes. Other, no, this phone is like the size of France and they still couldn't find a room for

a headphone jacket, even though Razor owns THX. They could at least put some lights in it so it lights up or something. Yeah. What are you doing, Razor? Where's the dragon? They did put two speakers, each with their own amps on it, so the thing gets ridiculously loud if you're not using headphones. If you're gaming. If you're gaming. Just Android gaming away on this phone. That's exciting.

Let's get one of those. Also, tomorrow. Yeah, well, you know, we've got the iPhone 10 review going up tomorrow. And then if you are a gamer, the Xbox one. The Xbox one. Tom Warren has been reviewing the Xbox 1X. And that will be going up tomorrow.

So you got chock full of good stuff. Diverge.com slash guidebook. Yeah, it's a big, it's a big new. Xbox. You know, I bought a PS4 Pro, and now I watched all, like, the unboxing videos and the thing. Well, what did you buy it for? To play Madden. Okay, so then you bought the right thing.

Really? Because, like, the games, like, the PS4 Pro is better if you're a gamer. The Xbox 1X is better if you want a whole home entertainment. Oh, spoilers. And also, yeah, this is a great teaser for the review if you haven't read it yet by the time you're listening to this. The Xbox 1X does not light up all the lights. No. Right?

It has HDR, but not Dolby Vision. That's correct. I knew this. I'm on it. Dan keeps assigning me TV box reviews. By the way, I was made to review a random fucking Roku this week. That's also on the website. Yes, it was.

He just gave it to me. I was like, here, fine, I'll review it. It's a Roku, done. It's fine. Does not light up all the lights. Does not light up all the lights. I'm working on it. I will say that my two light review system for TV devices seems to have really taken the internet by storm,

so we're sticking with it. Okay, let's plug some other stuff. Ashley, you've got, why'd you push that button, which is great, with Caitlin Tiffany, Andrew, who produces this show, produces that show. That's great, you should listen to it. It comes out on Tuesdays. Ashley, Paul, Heim, Jake and I also do the Circuit Breaker show, which is super fun to do.

It's like one of my favorite parts of the week. That is Tuesdays. Live. Live. Video. This week will have speakers. We have more speakers this week. We have more speakers this week.

That's why we do that show. That's live on Twitter at 4 p.m. The replays on the site on Wednesdays. Megan Faroakmanesh, Russell Brandem and I host the Mr. Robot After Show. Man, we're doing a lot. This week we had Carly Chakin, who plays Darlene. Next week, this is actually really cool.

Next week, we're going to be on USA right after Mr. Robot. So Robot's going to end on TV. The After Show is going to be on because we got Sam Esmail himself, the creator of Mr. Robot. So if you're watching Mr. Robot, watch the after show.

We're on the real TV. Wow. Oh, that's cool. Sign up for your cable service now. Please sign up for cable. Get your YouTube TV trial. Yeah. Well, Mr. Out of the season is real good.

I'm not saying that just because I host the after show. Like we actually made a very aggressive deal with USA to be editorally independent because I was like, I'm not just going to like do your thing. This season, last season was pretty slow. This season really fun. So if you're watching Mr. Robot, watch our after show because we're doing that. And then we have a whole range of podcasts from the Vox Media. a podcast network. I will not name any of Ezra Klein's shows, but they're available.

But our friends at Recode, great, great shows. Lauren Good, who's on this show all the time, one of our senior editors. Next level is coming back. Next week. Next week, she'll be on the show. We'll do the weekly segments with her, starting when next level starts. But her show, too embarrassed to ask with Kara Swisher. Available.

Kara Swisher host, Recode, Decode. Peter Kafka hosts Recode Media. If you're a media nerd, must listen. All that's on iTunes. Rate it, review it. I gotta say, I can't stop plugging your show, Ash. Why did you push that button? Great reviews on iTunes in the new and noteworthy, number one trending pocket cast.

This show is a real piece of garbage. That show is great. We're a sinking flagship. No, we're still there. We're doing our thing. The other boats are growing up. Is that what boats do? If you're not floating, you're sinking.

If you're not first. All right, that is our show, a real calamity of a show. As always, please send us more questions about the iPhone 10. Watch the review. Read the review. Please, God, keep reading the internet. Because words are important. We can't do this with just emojis.

But maybe we'll just transition. We're going to pivot this show to animosies. All right, that's it. Goodbye. Rock and roll. Paul. promo code. That's what Deeter says.