The Vergecast - Macbook Pro, Surface Studio, and the events surrounding

Episode Date: October 28, 2016

This week is a special episode of The Vergecast. After attending the Apple event, Nilay and Dieter sit down in San Francisco together and talk about the newest product announcements from Cupertino. Let us not forget, Microsoft also announced new computers this week! We invited an old friend of the show, senior editor Vlad Savov, to help cover it all. 01:27 - Microsoft event/Surface Studio 24:00 - Apple Mac event 28:25 - Macbook Pro 32:27 - Touchbar 41:01 - Specs 52:39 - Apple TV app Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We'll wrap up with a refreshing. It's like, what? Is it apatique? A little citrus spray of television. Yeah, exactly. It'll be very nice. It's a nice glass of port wine and a chocolate chip cookie of television. With some television zest on it.

Yeah, that'll be great. Hello, and welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast, theverge.com, a website that is relaunching its entire visual identity next week on Tuesday, November 1. Yeah, if you're listening to this late, it's already happened. That's true. But you're probably not listening to Slate because you are a news junkie. You love the news. And you love stylishly making your way through nightclubs.

You might say that you love cutting through the night. This is vodka, a joke that I'm just not letting die. Anyway, this is Vergecast. It's a huge week of news. It's like a throwback classic format Vergecast. We got Apple News. We got Microsoft News. There's only three people.

Dieter Bone is here. Hello. We're in all different places all over the country. Dieter and I are in San Francisco. Yeah. If you're hearing a mild echo, that's our apologies. We're in our new office in San Francisco, which is not totally set up for this yet. But Dieter and I just came from Cooper Tino.

We're at Apple Town Hall. We saw the new MacBooks with the touch bar. I spent a long time staring at TV screens, figuring out what the hell Apple's doing in TV. But then, in New York, which you're not expecting. You'll never guess who's in New York. Vlad Savov is on the Vergecast. in New York City. Hello.

Vlad. There he is. There's my man. Vlad is New York. Yeah. He's hanging out. He's going to be around for the Verge relaunch on Tuesday.

But Vlad covered deeply a whole bunch of Microsoft stuff that happened as well. Flad, do you want to give us the rundown on Microsoft real quick? Microsoft stuff. Well, the big highlight is the Surface Studio, which is the 28-inch all-in-one desktop computer. It's, I guess, the future of PCs of Microsoft envisions it. And it costs $3,000. And I'm buying the hell out of war. You could not be more enthused about this thing you could try.

I love it. Whatever, whoever invented the surface studio, Panos Pene, take a bow. He can't bow. He's too pumped. He's amped. He's amped. But like I'm saying, a classic week of tech news. We got desktop PCs just coming at you.

So I would actually say this is not what Microsoft thinks the future of PCs is. Like not even a little. Well, maybe a little. But this is Microsoft trying to prove, as Nick Stappen, Tell John I wrote that PCs can be about more than spreadsheets and hardcore gaming that they can also be for creative people and so I don't think my- PC's always been for creative people. Yeah, what are you talking about? I mean, yeah, but like in terms of how people think of them, people, when people think of Windows, they don't think of- Oh, that kind of, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true, right? Yeah. So for me, this, this is like a real, like, Sony move. This is like an aspirational product. They don't care if they don't, if they don't sell that many. No. fact that it exists and people can go into a Microsoft store and go, holy shit, this is

awesome, and then go buy a Surface 4. Yeah. It's like a big win for it. It's a concept car. Yeah. But I disagree with you. Okay. So do I actually. And this is a bit of preview of conflict. And I'll tell you why. The thing doesn't have a graphics card. It's true. And it has a gazillion pixels. So it literally

can't do anything other than push those gazillion pixels. No, hold on. And so like, it is maxed out. Just like just like running the task bar. All right, Vlad, take it away. Peaks the processor. Vlad has ideas. Thank you, Neelai.

First of all, it does have a graphics card. It is a powerful graphics card. The problem is, listen, this is my biggest complaint and gripe about this PC as well. So I am with you on that one, but it's an Nvidia-G-Force G-G-Fort, GtX-980M. It's yesterday's top-of-the-line graphics card. So it exists is good. It isn't as good as this year's. Usually with graphics cards, you know, between one year and the next, you don't notice

because the major differences, because there are many major differences. It's just incremental updates. This year, though, Nvidia's Pascal architecture, the 10 or 1,000 series of GPUs, are just so far ahead from the previous ones. You're just doing yourself a disservice by buying anything other than an Nvidia GTX-1000 series. Why did they use last year's mobile graphics card?

Like, when I say it doesn't have a graphics card, like, come on. It's a super expensive computer. Also, Vlad, we haven't had you on the show in a long time. Yeah. This is just a remarkable way for you to come in. It's so good. I'm so happy you're here. If you're like a new Vergecast listener, the way Vlad just says the words graphics

card just fills my heart with just sheer unadulterated joy. Now, Vlad, get into it with me because the GPU issue is real on a MacBook Pro too because Apple with AMD and everything I've heard is what the whole world should be on these Nvidia 1000 series cards. But let's focus on Microsoft. Let's do the first bit of the show on the Big Microsoft News. Then we'll go talk about the Macs. Totally.

Happy to. Well, first of all, let me mention, I am, in fact, Bulgarian, even though my accent is totally British. All of my accents are vaguely either Jamaican or Indian. It's just a problem I have. It's just who I am. What, I'm an Indian man who wants to be in a beach. It makes sense. So the thing with the GPU, and Panos Ponae, I think he touched on that during the Microsoft presentation.

He said that they spent an inordinate amount of time integrating everything. And if you look at the Surface Studio, all of the PC is essentially in this one inch high or thereabout module at the bottom. I mean, it's the size of, I don't know, an external CD drive from back in the day, a little bit larger, a little bit wider. So, you know, Microsoft serves credit for integrating all of that stuff. You know, you can get up to 32 gigabytes, up to 32 gigabytes of RAM, you know, Core I5, CoreI7 processors. But again, the processes are yesterday years. This one is excusable because you can't have quad-core processes with this generation. So Intel is a bit slow on this front.

Like if Intel could get its stuff together and deliver quad-core with this year's generation of processes, we do a lot less complaining. But, you know, Intel has been slow for years now. You know, they're having issues there. But Microsoft said that they spend a lot of time integrating all of this. So if you take the 980M and you've been developing this for months and months and then all of a sudden, Nvidia comes out with its much better graphics car. but you have to kind of undo the whole thing and then try and put it back together again. Maybe they just didn't have the time to do it, which is disappointing, but you can kind of

sympathize. My issue is, and I mentioned the price nice and early because I think that is the real big deal here. At $3,000, what you are selling to people, like Deez says, is some vision of the future, some vision of something beyond us, which will bring into you into the present. I think that's kind of, like he said, the aspirational part. it's the aspirational part of us as residents of the present wanting to be part of the future. And Apple does that a lot and does it successfully. We'll talk about how successfully with the new MacBook Pro, but this is Microsoft getting

into the same business and it's not really getting into the future of computing. Like if you look at the back of it, it has four USB ports, just standard USB. Apple just blew that away with four USBC, Thunderbolt-Free ports, with gigabytes and gillions of bandwidth and varieties of things that you can do with it again in the future. Microsoft just doing standard USB free checks. I mean, this is why I'm saying that this thing isn't meant to be bought, right? Like, it's got a bunch of yesterday stuff in it. And anybody who's able to converse in the graphics cards and processor numbers language

that you just spoke is not the target market for this device. I agree. And is not like, Microsoft doesn't care. Like it has the regular USBAs on the back of it because like that's comprehensible to the people that actually want paying attention to this thing, which is like, you know, rich people,

rich artists, graphic designers, stuff that gets drawn basically. Like those people, they want them to go and buy this thing. And more importantly, they want them to want this thing and they want people to envision,

Windows as a platform for those kinds of people. Because right now when you think Windows, what do you think? You think symphonies with spread sheets, which is a phrase that was said in there, which is amazing. And you know, you think hardcore games. And you think like, you know, the big ass, you know, $300, three inch thick, 17 inch, crappy screen laptop you have sitting under your coffee table, right? That's what Windows is to most people.

And Microsoft wants Windows to have a cooler cachet. And this thing is designed to give it that cache, even if they don't sell more than a few thousand of them. So there is actually a theory I want to just layer on top of this. And it relates to both Microsoft and Apple. And actually, this is the fun bit of recording the podcast in advance is I'll be able to write the full article and people can read it and then it can hear this. So it's kind of like... Complete flat experience. Yeah, I'm preempting myself.

So here's the thing. I think that the future of both PC and Mac is the thing that we saw this week. And I think the future is that they're just going to get more expensive. And this is because the old business, and this is Intel's business. Like if you're asking what do you want to do with the PC industry, they're saying sell more stuff, sell more numbers. But Microsoft and Apple seem to have gotten it into their heads that people are just not going to buy PCs at anywhere near the same numbers as previously. So it's basic economics. If you can't make 5% profit margin on millions and millions of units,

you try and make 10%, 15% on a smaller number of units. So this is where I think they're both heading. I mean, look at the other products on Microsoft announced. It announced a new Surface book. That's $2,000 whatever dollars. Microsoft's new MacBook Pros, each of them is starting at a higher price. It's wild. I mean, the 15-inch new MacBook Pro is $1799.

Yeah, and the config they want you to think about is $2,39. Yeah. And you can take it to like $4,200 if you want to, which is crazy. Yeah, I mean, my theory in a nutshell is the future of these devices is going to essentially revert back to be more expensive. I saw this with cameras, to be honest with you, like big DSLRs, when it was starting off, digital SLR cameras were really expensive, quite rarely used, and everybody was kind of using simple, cheap film cameras.

Then they became evictors. They became really cheap. had one, then we got the mirrorless cameras that we have of today, and now this allows, again, retreating to just being small volume, high price, high margin kind of devices. The same thing is happening with the desktop PC and the laptop, I guess. Yeah, I mean, I want to kind of zoom out on Microsoft and the PC for a second. What Microsoft has done with its brand over the past, I don't know, year, year and a half under Sasha Nadella is kind of incredible.

Yeah. They're acting with an amount of confidence that I think, I suspect, came from letting go of the idea that they were going to be competitive in mobile. They just stopped. So Microsoft's two platforms now are its apps, which are everywhere, and they're doing a great job of being sort of horizontal with their apps. And then their innovation platform, they're like big platform, is Windows and Windows hardware. And they're saying with Windows hardware, we're going to be competitive with Apple. right at the high end of this premium market. I think we should call it surface hardware

because I think that's the key word here. I mean, that's fine. But Microsoft is basically telling all of their OEMs with the surface, look, we're not going to cut your knees out from under you everywhere. But we are going to play very, very hard at the top end of the market. And so you could do whatever you want under us.

And if you want to come at us at the top end, go for it. But we are not sorry and not afraid to release the stuff that costs a lot of money that serves as, like, Halo devices for Windows. Right. And I think that, you know, they updated the Surface book. It's a lot faster now. Great.

They made the hinge gap a little bit thinner. Yeah. Hopefully this one doesn't have the Intel processor issues that plagued the first one. But then they also, I think the Surface Studio, which we should talk about in more detail than just complaining about its graphics hard. The service studio is 28-inch floating water. It actually reminds me a lot of the IMAG-4, which had that round base and the aluminum arm

and you can move the screen all around. Yeah, okay, I could see that. It's like, that's the last articulating screen desktop PC that I can think of. Am I? So, but the cool thing is like it's got this insane hinge. There's like, what, 30 parts and both sides of the heads? I don't forget.

What we need to do is post a video with head-to-head, run that head-to-head Microsoft's exploded parts come together with dramatic music to form a product versus Apple's exploded parts come together dramatically. Apple has a slight edge because it's Johnny Ive. Yeah. Saying Johnny Ive things like the fan blades are...

Aluminium. You know what we should get a good British voice actor to like redub Microsoft's like voiceover for it? Or no, we should get a bad British voice actor. We should get a what's his name, guy who was in charge of Brexit and like all, all four.

for Brexit and have him. We should have Nigel Farage. Too soon, needed it. Too soon. We have like 90 Brits on set. We just have anybody do. No, so, okay, it's like the zero gravity thing so you can push it down, not quite flat.

And part of me wanted it to be flat all the way, if you're real. And then you can like lean on the thing. Yeah. And that's cool and drawn or whatever. And then they brought back the puck. Yeah. The puck is back. And it's like the Bluetooth thing.

You can like stick it on the screen and like turn it. So in like, like 2000, what, two, 2001, the Griffin Power Mate. Yeah. It's like a real deep throwback. So like before the Verge existed, before any, before Engadgett and Gizmodo existed, I would be in college and I'd be reading like O'Grady's Power page, Macintouch.com, and all the old school Mac sites like lit up.

The Griffin PowerMate is here. And it was a huge stainless steel knob with like U.S. USB lights at the base, you plugged it in over USB, it had its own weird custom driver software for, what the time was like OS9. Yeah. And you could turn it and it would like change your volume. But then you could go into Final Cut Pro and it would like scroll the timeline.

And it was just a huge knob. And everyone was like, this knob is the future of Mac peripherals. It was not. Yeah. But it was like a great three year run. They still sell the thing. It's like 50 bucks. And Microsoft, it's like the center of like the surface.

studio experience. Have you noticed that, and I know we keep saying we're going to finish up Microsoft and I get to Apple, but both Microsoft and Apple sold Visions of the Future today where you're going wicker, wicker, wicker with two hands and neither one of them is touching a keyboard. With Microsoft, it's the dial and a pen. Yeah. And with Apple, it's like the biggest touchpad you've ever beheld in your entire life and the touchbar thing at the top.

The track pad on the 15 inch MacBook Pro is legitimately bigger than an iPhone 6S plus. set one on top of it and it was like like 30% more space around it. The whole thing. Not just the screen of a success plus. Yeah. The entire six. It's so comically huge. But no, like, like keyboards aren't cool anymore apparently. And what you're supposed to do is like have two hands doing stuff. Yeah. So my read on the Microsoft thing is Apple has really neglected its creative markets. Yep. Until today with this MacBook Pro. The Mac Pro has, been is ancient, it's like 500, 50 days or something ridiculous. The iMac is fine, but it's not, there's not a ton of like IMA innovation in this world.

I mean, there's the 5K IMA, which is pretty dope. It's a nice screen, but, yeah, okay. They're not, like, revving it. They're not, like, coming out with a wild new features. They're not changing the concept of what a computer is with it. Right, right. And Microsoft is saying, what if we, what if we make, like, really awesome computers for you, Photoshop user?

and now Photoshop is in Creative Cloud. So just sign up for Creative Cloud, and you can download Photoshop for Windows. And it'll be just the same in all your data and everything will sync because you're a Creative Cloud client. Hmm. That's pretty interesting.

I wonder, like, unlimited budget Photoshop user, I think you probably, like hardcore, your whole life is Photoshop. Yeah. You probably go with the studio instead of the MacBook Pro. Yeah. If you don't need portability. Yeah, but it's not a straight comparison.

I mean, one's a laptop. I think you go with this studio instead of the IMA. Yeah. You go with the studio instead of a Mac Pro, which is, like, runs on Steam, right? Like, they didn't, they didn't say a single thing about the Mac Pro. We should benchmark. Oh, we should. We are going to benchmark these new MacBook Proz against the Mac Pro.

I mean, the MacPro is like 16 processors. It's a ridiculous. Yeah. They're different kinds of things. I know, but. Yeah. Okay. Anyhow, I just think what Microsoft is doing with PCs is because it's, they're constrained.

They can't do anything in mobile. And even if they do something cool mobile, it doesn't matter because they lost. So now they're going to go back to where they're still dominant. I mean, they still sell more PCs anybody. Or Windows still more PCs anybody. They're going to try to push that platform forward. I think it's really neat. I actually have unreasonably high hopes for the Surface 5, the next tablet.

Because, like, they threw a whole bunch of specs and some minor redesigns at the surface book. At the surface, like, I expected them to like, just throw a new processor and they say, hey, here's a vibe, it's a new processor and whatever. But they didn't. and then they're going to do something next year. And that makes me think that, like, there's going to be a bigger change coming.

And I still, still, still, five years since the original Surface and Surface RT, five years already, four years? Yeah. Still believe that, like, they can get it.

They can nail that combo package somehow. Nobody's done it. Like, Lenovo tried with the yoga book and then, I don't think the iPad Pro is there. I don't think the surface is there, but, like, I want to believe that somewhere deep down

Panos Panas Panay, the reason he's so pumped and so excited is he knows that they've got it and they just need to finish it. You know what the best thing for a plane is? It's not a surface. It's a 12-inch MacBook. Yeah. The guy in the plane on the flight to San Francisco is using an iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard and he saw me use your old 12-inch MacBook. And he's like, what is that? This is stupid. I want that instead. But anything else from Microsoft are you going to talk about? It's really the Surface Studio, which I am just buying the hell out of. This week is so expensive.

Yeah, Vlad, do you care about the stuff they did to Windows, the little... The creator edition? Creator edition, little heads in the taskbar or any of that stuff. I mean, that is interesting. The idea of Windows people being a method for you to have your people, your nearest contacts in your taskbar, and being able to share files with them, that's intriguing. But the thing with that sort of service is it needs to be almost friction-free when you're first sending it up. So maybe if it picks up contacts from your contacts book,

and just immediately throws them in there, like family, closest friends, whatever, and then you get into it. Like, once you develop a habit, I can see that being really useful. Like, if you're a regular Windows user and you just have, it's essentially kind of like Facebook chat heads

in your task bar. Yeah. And you can just throw messages in there and do stuff. I mean, you make emoji pop up on their little dancing emoji pop up on their desktop against their will. I'm pretty sure I'm too old for that. But the point is,

that's a sort of feel. feature because it's so neatly entirely integrated without getting in your face too much that you can just wind up using without even realizing it. Yeah. So that has potential. But I'll just throw in one last slot on Service Studio and that is I don't

think it's an IMAQ competitor. And this is purely on account of price. You know, when you say it's for professionals, it's for really wealthy professionals. It's for like people who are, I don't know. It's so much of an aspirational item that I don't even see the actual marketplace for it. Whereas with the IMAG, I think one part

that maybe Microsoft is missing or is just kind of ignoring is the fact that people buy the IMAX sometimes even just to make the office or hotel reception look more stylish. You know, it's just prettier than having an old laptop hanging out there. And that's not a market that Microsoft is really addressing. Yeah, but I don't think, I mean, hotel lobby IMAX is when I go to hotels, I'm like, wow, your IMA is 400 years old. And then you look at what they're doing on it. It's like they've run the same 400-year-l app. Yeah. And it's fine.

Like, I think, I think Microsoft is going after the people who make enough money using Photoshop or doing illustration or, I don't know, circling things and documents all day long to justify that computer. I mean, like, if having that product makes you more efficient, then it's worth it.

And you can justify it. I mean, that's always the justification for, so it's for people, you just said it's for people who do a lot of circling stuff on documentary. No, they're starting to make the case that the pen is for more than circling stuff.

Yes, yes, but this is the point. You're trying to make the case with a $3,000 product. The reason why I really like the Lenovo Yoga Book is because it said, here's a new way to use your tablet with this stylus and with this whole different application, different mode. But then, well, it's only like $500, $550. You can buy it and start experimenting. Whereas Microsoft is saying...

Yeah, I bought it, and I started experimenting, and then I returned it. Sorry. I got to say, Yoga Book also hampered by a slow Intel processor. It's like a real theme of the next generation of hardware. Yeah, if there is a theme to this podcast is that Nvidia is awesome, it didn't get enough love from Apple and Microsoft and Intel sucks, but it's a monopoly and therefore we're stuck with it. What if AMD starts making processors again?

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So for an exclusive clip of Aaron Sorkin discussing how he writes dialogue, go to Masterclass.com slash the verge. That's masterclass.com. slash the verge. All right, let's talk about Apple. You want to, so here's the problem with talking about Apple. Yeah. There's two things to talk about.

We could both spend, like, Vlad and I and Neelai, too, I suppose, could spend a good hour talking about these laptops. There's also television and Neely is on this show. And against all reason or interest, we could spend four hours talking about just tiny minor random TV interface changes. All day. Let's start with the laptop. Okay.

And then I'll, and then we'll, I already told you what I think of the TV, but we'll get to that later. Two things stuck out, aside from the products, the album, one very chill vibe.

Yeah, subdued even. Yeah, super whatever, not a big deal. From the journalists and attendance, from the media partners, from Apple itself, just very relaxed. Yep.

Not, it's not that Apple doesn't always have sort of relaxed vibes, but there's usually like... There's like a buzz. There's like an energy. Celebration in there. This time it was just... It wasn't like dour. It wasn't like bummed. It was just like... I can't tell if they were relaxed

because they were so confident and happy with what they made or if they're just like, yeah, I made some stuff. It's good. Yeah, here it is again. Yeah. Second, they spent more time talking about their own history today than I have ever encountered from Apple ever before. They talked about how 25, years ago, the first PowerBook 170 came out. Then they did their whole introduction. Then Phil Schiller came out and said, I want to talk about the Powerbook 170 again, put it back to back with the new MacBook Pro, talked about how it was like 6.8 million times faster than that computer. Yeah. They ran a video showing all of the old Macs laptops that they've ever made,

include like the Ibook and the PowerBook 500. They just spent a lot of time in their own history being like, we invented and have driven forward the laptop. Well, you know what that is, Neil? Here's the next one. What's that? This week is the 25th anniversary of the first laptop. Yeah. And you made this point on the live blog,

and I'm just going to straight away steal it from you and say, this for us should be a preview of what Apple has planning for the next iPhone. Because the next iPhone, 10th anniversary iPhone, and if what we've seen from this debut today with a laptop and all of this history and backtracking from Apple tells us Apple cares about anniversaries. Yeah. You know, if you do something, and it turns out pretty good,

then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what's next. Literally, yeah. By Steve Jobs that we had to stare at for about 45 minutes while we were waiting online to get into this event to watch the history. And like, I know this is a cheap shot.

And it was the 25th anniversary, and it's been a really long time since Apple sort of touted its own history. So, like, I actually am not offended by them doing that. I thought it was fun and cool. Yeah, it was neat. But, like, they definitely set themselves up for this joke that we're being in. Well, you know, the other thing is Tim Cook.

No, I thought it was great. Like, I honestly thought it was really, like, they made a point to us when we were speaking with the executives afterward that the form factor they introduced, the Power Book 170, which was revolutionary at the time with the palm rest and the track ball at the time and now just a comically large touchpad is still the dominant form of laptops. And, like, they made that happen.

They put Wi-Fi in the thing. Like, they did all of these things first. Take a victory. 25 years, take a victory lap. Yeah. But then the vibe around the actual product, the combination of that and the sort of subdued,

not like, again, it wasn't sad. It was just very chill. It was like, here's on a Mac. We know you wanted one. We made one. We took out some buttons and put a touchscreen. Let's talk about a damn laptop. Forget the album.

I don't care about the atmosphere. I wasn't there. Like, you're not immersing me in excitement here, near light. So let's just talk about... I'm trying to set the same mood on this show that Apple... Okay, you go ahead. Yeah, this mood is depression.

This is like listening to Radiohead. Forget their event. Honestly, their event, for me... For me, their event was just looking at Tim Cook, who spent much longer on stage than he usually does. And I think he was still stuck in the earnings call mode that he was in like two days ago. He's just reciting numbers and stats.

And it's like, no, this... like we celebrated Apple when Apple said you know what we've got too much to tell you today we're not going to talk about stats remember when Apple did that and we're like yeah go for it now who's been depressing you're being depressing okay let's talk about the product say I'm doing to you what you just did to me yeah uh huh ha ha ha anyway uh new macbook pro yeah two sizes 13 15 yeah there's a baby 13 that has standard keyboard function keys yep two thunderbolt three ports and a headphone jack and a headphone jack but I actually think the confusion between whether the Thunderbolt 3 ports or USBC ports is real because Apple's calling them Thunderbolt 3 ports even though the connector is USBC. Correct. Yes. And it also supports USB

Yeah. So it's Thunderbolt over USBC. Or is it USBC over Thunderbolt? Who knows? Very confusing because Apple's calling them Thunderbolt 3 ports. That's the baby. Yeah. It's 1399, I believe. Yeah. And like there's a whole thing that we can get into later if we want to about like Apple's product lineup and like the step-up strategy. Now this one is 1499, I'm pretty sure. The little, yeah. Yeah, you said 13. I think it's 14.

I think it's 1,400 bucks. These things are ridiculously expensive. Anyhow, then there's a middle one, the 13-inch with either an I-5 or an I-7. It's got, in the standard configs, it's got Intel Iris graphics, so integrated graphics, and it's got the touchbar. And the touch bar, we're going to talk about it, depth. And then there's the 15-inch with... the quadcore i7 discrete amd or uh discrete amd graphics i said graphics graphics and also the touchbar

and that one is ridiculously expensive at 2399 for it's like what i think apple thinks it's the most common configuration the touchbar is super interesting the keyboard super interesting the keyboard what they said to us is it's the second generation of the 12 inch macbook keyboard which has very shallow travel yep and they have engineered it to feel as though it has more travel yes i've been thinking about this. Although it may not. I don't think it has more travel. I actually think it might have a little, but I think what they did is they re-engineered the butterfly mechanism and the pad that actually takes it to give you more resistance throughout the entire key press instead of just like it shoots down and you feel the click at the bottom. And so as you push on the key, it feels like it's deeper

because it's giving you a slightly more resistance throughout the entire motion of the key press. and therefore, I think it feels much closer to what most people traditionally expect from a keyboard. But look, I love the keyboard on the MacBook that is shallow that everybody else hates. So don't take my opinion as like you're going to like this keyboard. You can't trust me. Take my opinion, which is that you're not going to like this keyboard. At least not at first. This is not a keyboard and everybody picks up and says, oh, this is familiar, this is natural, this is sensible.

let's start bashing away at it. When you say Dita, the entire travel of the key, we're talking about like 1.5 millimeters at most. There is no travel. It definitely feels like more travel than the 12-inch MacBook. Yeah. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying. That's not really a standard to judge it by.

Most people don't have a MacBook. Most people have never spent any time adapting to one. And for myself, I come from a MacBook hair, which, you know, he still has this flag chick-chickleck keyboard. It must have, I don't know, a dozen times, 20 times more. travel than these new keyboards. And I think, again, speaking for myself, I'm going to need a lot of adaptation before I'm able to say, okay, I'm comfortable with this new keyboard. Because the travel is to settle for most people. I disagree. I think the 12-inch MacBook is definitely like,

it might as well not have keys. It might as just be a flat piece of glass sometimes. But I think that coming from the air to this, I think, I think it's fine. You're going to like it. But it doesn't matter because who gives a shit about keys? Like, you don't have any other choice. Like, Like, there are no other Apple laptops coming for a while. And like, wait three more years. The Air is never getting any significant updates ever again, except unless they decide to do it. Who knows? Like, you can't bet on air updates.

Yeah. You, if you need a powerful Mac laptop, this is it. So, like, suck it up. You're going to learn to love the keyboard because, like, that's all that there is for you now. And I know you're going to learn to love it. Anyway, let's talk about the touch bar. The only people, the only reason people are listening to show, 45 minutes in, we're going to talk about the touch bar.

We've got to talk about the specs of these things, too. I really want to hear what Glad thinks of, okay, touch bar. Fine. It's going to the touch bar. Here's my firm belief about the touch bar, which was somewhat validated in our conversations of Apple today. They don't want to make a touchscreen Mac. I think they've tried to make them.

I think they've tested them, prototyped them. They hate them. But they know that a whole generation of consumers has come up expecting touch interactions for things that are great, like selecting emoji. I don't think, like selecting emoji on a Mac right now or any computer that doesn't have a touchscreen sucks. Yep.

And they know they need to bring some of those experiences to the Mac. So instead of putting a touchscreen on the display, they've built a new touch area that is very reminiscent in terms of its interaction patterns to iOS stuff, to the Apple Watch. And there's a bunch of neat Apple Watch connections. they're pulling apart the code on Twitter today. It's basically a tiny Apple watch that runs that whole thing.

That's super neat. They needed to do touch ID because they want to get away from passwords. They want Apple Pay on the web to work. So they built basically a tiny touch computer under the screen because they don't want to put a touchscreen on the display, which is bold. Like the simple answer is to put a fingerprint reader somewhere on the base and put a touchscreen on the display and just move on.

But Apple is just philosophically. ideologically opposed to building a touchscreen Mac, and what they've done instead is build this thing. But there is a conflict that arises here, and I noticed this when I was using the touchbar today, when I was checking it out. You start using it, and the touchbar very closely relates to the app you have above. So Apple has obviously customized all of its own apps. So in Garage Band, you have specific customizations, alterations that you can apply to a particular track. If you're in photos, you can scroll. I mean, I'm sure you guys have tried this. It's so addictive and beautiful to just be scrolling

through the photos with the touchbar, just doing that with your finger with nice sliding gesture. But because of this tight integration between the touchbar and the screen above it, my instinct is to go, okay, I'm touching a screen here and then I'm just going to reach at the screen. Yes, I did it. Oh my God, I did it like four times.

Yeah, a million. Like, yeah. I was playing with the DJ, the algorithm of DJ app. And I was like, I'm doing this. Why am I doing this here instead of up here on the big. Yeah. So my, my, my, my thinking on this is like, it'll, it'll probably go away for the most part after you use it. But that they decided to not just like make this thing a bunch of customizable buttons, but they gave it like a little bit of dynamism, a little bit of interactivity.

So you can like slide your finger on stuff. Right. And just giving it that little bit of dynamism and interactivity directly on the thing means that you're. goes into, oh, I'm interacting with a touchscreen now, and then you immediately go to directly interact with a thing on a touchscreen, because that's what you do with, you directly interact with the software. Whereas on a laptop, you don't. And so that thing literally sitting, it sits in between, like, the old and the new.

You've got the old model of interaction on the bottom, then there's the new one, and it makes you want to just touch the screen. And I don't know if, like, I don't know if it's ever going to go away for me, to be honest, because that's how I use a phone and now I've got a little tiny, you know, phone-like thing on the laptop. I'm not saying it's bad. Like, I'm very excited for this touchbar.

I'm very excited for, like, seeing what can be done on it. I'm mostly very excited for people to hack the T1 so that I can put custom crap in the system zones that I'm not supposed to. We'll see if they allow that or if it is possible. I think it's wide open. I think, no, so here's the deal. The touch bar has like some system.

areas. That's where the Siri button is, the volume button. You can expand it out to get all your other standard function controls. And that is locked down. Well, you can customize it, but with only Apple options so far. Right. Everything else is directly tied to the active app that's running. So you can't like, you can't like buy, you know how you can get like a menu bar utility and that's just a thing that sits in your menu bar that does stuff? You can't do that with a touch bar. All it does is customize itself based on what the app that's currently running tells it what to do. And the question that I have

that I don't know the answer to is, we know that this thing is basically a tiny little Apple Watch, I guess. We know that it has a secure element because that's where the touch ID comes from. So in order to like, if anybody wants to do like menu bar style utilities on it, you might have to jail break the thing.

That'd be incredible. It'd be insane. But who knows? Anyway, Vlad, you're exactly right. I did it definitely four times today where like knowing, having thought less than 30 seconds ago, I shouldn't touch the screen. I know that this isn't a touch screen.

Just immediately went up to touch. It wasn't the worst in the photos app. But I was like, oh, Bortool. I want us to think about for a moment how an Apple-like this is. Because typically the Apple way has been, you pick up the device and you're like, yeah, this makes sense. And then, oh, this follows that. That makes sense.

Intuitive. Yop, yep, yep. And we've had that with iOS 10. You know, intuitiveness has kind of gone away from iOS 10. It took me such a long time with the iPhone 7 to figure out, like somebody literally needed to tell me you force touch notifications in order to do something useful with them. Yeah. And Apple is doing this again, where it's doing things and all three of us. And, I mean, I can't think of a more techier group of, you know, international humans than us, right?

We spend all about time. That's our new male clothing store. techie international humans. We spend all of our time with phones and laptops, and we are supposed to be able to relate to both touchscreens and physical controls in a fast and natural manner, and then all three of us fell into this trap of intuitiveness, I guess. So this is peculiar, but one of the thing I was going to mention,

and I think it's important. We had this issue with Force Touch, or FreeD Touch on the iPhone, where Apple introduced it, Apple integrated it into its own apps, and then we sat and waited for third-party developers was to do something useful with it, and we're still waiting. I think the reason that forced touch, by the way, what a terrible name. Yep. Not in the touch bar, by the way.

It's the touch bar, right? It's the touch bar. Right. Okay. So the track pads are forced touch. Yep. The iPhone is 3D touch. Yep.

Explain that to me. Anyhow. I refuse to explain that to you. But here's why I think, and they showed a ton of developers already using it. I think it is probably somewhat trivial for the developers to add it. My great fear was that Apple would restrict it to apps that were in the Mac App Store. They didn't do that. It's wide open. And not for nothing, it's staring at every MacBook Pro owner in the face. Right. Right. So I think with 3D touch, it was hidden. It didn't

make any sense. There was no natural sort of UI language for it. What is it good for? Who gives a shit? By the way, all these apps are free and it doesn't matter. If you, you're Adobe and you're making Photoshop and you can make the life of a MacBook Pro owner that much better. Using the OLED screen that is literally in front of their face, you're probably just going to do it. It's going to be bought first by serious hardcore users and professionals who are the kind of people who are going to send emails and agitate in forums to make that bar more

useful. And they showed apps. They showed Photoshop. They showed Office. they showed algorithms DJ I mean I'm switching to I have an Acorn man for my photo app if Acorn doesn't immediately add

the tools that I saw on PixelMater today I'm switching to PixelMater like that is a successful hardware feature I do love the fact that Microsoft is one of the fanboy developers now for Apple and is like first out of the gate we've got word integration Excel integration we're ready yeah I mean

and there's headphone jack You should put that out of it. Yeah. Oh, actually, let's do a little run through the specs. Because to me, once you digest the big highlight, there are a couple of things that stand out. First, you're on the positive side. The display is once again improved.

Okay, last year's display, I reviewed the Spring 2015 MacBook Pro, and that display basically buried my MacBook Air. It was like, I am living in a caveman past. I need to upgrade to a MacBook Pro, red to the MacBook Pro. This one, a wider color gamut, matches the iPhone 7 now, higher contrast ratio, I mean, it's super high resolution, there is literally no limit to the viewing angles, you know, you see these things perched up and they do actually look like the future, you know, when they just stood up next to each of these laptops.

They just, they look amazing, they look terrific, okay? So the display, Apple didn't market it enough in my opinion, because it once again is just so brilliant. Like, I can't say enough good things about it. But besides that, you know, know on the process side same complaint is with Microsoft these are Intel six-gen processors and this time unlike Microsoft right Microsoft's excuse is there are no quad-core latest generation Intel processors so you have to use the other generation so Apple can use the same excuse on the 15 inch Magbook Pro but not on the 13-inch because other companies they were included have already done the Cabby Lake this

latest generation of Intel processors dual core in their competing devices so my only reasoning for this is that Apple was like, we can't have our lower tier cheaper device with a later generation of Intel CPU than our top tier Quote Quar device, which to me still kind of sucks because I want the perfect laptop and to me the perfect laptop is going to be 13 inches. But this is never going to be my perfect laptop because it doesn't have an SD car slot. Yeah. And if there is one thing... The SD card slot is like, yeah. If there's one thing that is as universal as a headphone jack right now in technology the next thing

after the headphone jack maybe is a USB port but you know that's dying away being replaced by USBC which everybody agrees a good idea but the next thing after them is the SD card every single camera manufacturer is standardizing around the SD card as the medium of

storage the format of storage and why have they had gone with micro SD if they had gone with microSD which is what Microsoft keeps trying to make happen on devices that might have been interesting actually and maybe we'd like just all switch to those tiny little pinky nails

or like use you know SD adapters with microSD like that could have been interesting because like Microsoft is doing it if an Apple does it too then that'll be the thing that happens I fundamentally believe that the dongle life that a bunch of people are going to have to live with with this thing is better than

you think it's going to be because it's a laptop you put it in a bag your bag has pockets put some dongles in the pockets life goes on. I'm much more annoyed with them on phones than I am with laptops. Okay. But, but not having an SD slot for the target market for this thing, which is people who want to step up from the air and then, you know, a lot, a lot of people who like need to use SD cards. It's just a killer. It's just like, ugh. No, it really is. And I will tell you, photographers are up in arms about this. And they're actually even, like, you would think,

think I will be the guy who freaks out about specs. And I'm kind of bummed that it's not the latest indoor proser, but I can live with that. And I'm kind of bummed that it's integrated graphics. But again, I can live with that because I don't want to play games. And integrated into graphics can be just fine for regular use. So we can kind of look past those things. This isn't going to be a VR platform after all. So just get over them.

Right. But then photographers, they want more memory. They want more performance. And that's understandable. And Apple isn't giving it to them. Like some people have me saying, I'm happy to spend even more on a laptop if it's a real workhorse. And what Apple is doing is it's pulling the MacBook Pro so close to the MacBook

that it's kind of leaving those people who weren't just an absolute beast of a machine and they don't want it to be a Windows PC. They used to Mac. They like the Mac in its design and it's software, utilities and everything else. They're used to that as their work though. A lot of photographers are like that because Apple has been pushing amazing displays for the longest time. And photographers are like, well, Mac gives me a better way. to process my photos, that's my workflow.

And now those people are kind of left in a lurch, you know. And like you said, Dita, while you were laughing maniacally, there is no next option, right? Apple just refresh the MacBook Pro. Now it's like months and years until you get the next update, the next option. So now it's like, I am actually starting to think. Service book, yeah. I am starting to think what are the Microsoft alternatives now? Because I need more performance.

And I am not going to be. You're going to get a service book. I am not going to be the guy with a dung. for his SD card when you're trying to rush and get photos off your camera and upload them somewhere, it's just not going to happen. A dungle is not going to improve my workflow. It's going to make it worse.

And the other problem, right, if camera companies had been able to do wireless transfer photos off the cameras by now, this would not be an issue, right? If we could do wireless transfers off cameras, we wouldn't be pissing and moaning about it so much. But the fact is

that they all absolutely stink. Their software stinks. They are the worst. You can't get your photos off wirelessly. You have to take the SD card out. And when you take it out, it needs to have a slow in a laptop. The new Nikon-the-Ni-Kon-Wiless transfer is better, but it is pretty slow. Just get a dongle, bud. Yeah, I should get a dongle, or I should buy an expensive new camera with actually good wireless transfer.

Or maybe a USBC camera. That could be the next move, right? Yeah. Who knows? I'm less. I'm with Dieter. I think I would rather have four ports on my computer that can do anything. thing, literally anything, from charge and power the thing to plug-in adapters, then 900

sort of single-purpose ports. Well, I mean, that is the Apple philosophy. And I would say that's exactly what's happened to with the touchbar, isn't it? Because we had, how many keys are they? 15, 20 keys that had one or two specific functions. And they're now replaced by the universality of the touchbar. So at least philosophically, that's consistent for Apple. Yeah.

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purgecast. Do you have a final MacBook Pro thought before I take this thing over with television? Let me enumerate the number of dongles that I'm going to need. Ethernet. Sometimes Wi-Fi sucks

in events. So I'm going to need an Ethernet dongle. Then I'm going to need a specific brand-new cable which Apple bundles with none of his devices to connect an iPhone to a MacBook, second cable. Then I'm going to need a don't know SD card third one and I'm sure there's something else that I'm missing wait I have an

adapter in my bag you got to get the the multi-dapter the who too yeah I got I got a Minix I don't know what company Minix is yeah if I don't on Amazon I got an adapter it's got two USB 3 ports an SD card reader some other weird card reader Ethernet Jack yeah charge the thing Anchor's got to make one of these things the battery built into it called me so people have been promised to make one with batteries and and they've all kick started and failed I have tried all of these USBC adapters, they're all great until you need them to reliably read an SD card and then they shake the bed, of course. Oh, well, that's the perfect spot for, isn't it?

And you know, the one that I forgot, the dongle that I forgot is the USB to USBC. I'm just thinking about the gazillions of USB sticks that I have at home, which would just be like, forget it. Trash now. If you ever write like a super sad kind of like pop lit book memoir thing, Vlad, it should be called the Dongle I forgot the Vladsevob story. It's just stories of being at events and not having the right adapter. It's all like Craigslist misconnections, but for things you want to plug. The Dongle not taken.

You're like, I was there. I could have plugged an Ethernet cable into my laptop, but I'd once again forgotten it. Call me if you see me to you, cable lists in Seattle. Like the whole thing. Yeah. Misconnections, but for Dongles. This is a billion dollar idea. I like that.

like I'm telling you this is the next this is the next twilight it's the next uh it's the next 50 shades it's 50 shades but for dongles no it's not no we are we are super moving on for that joke we are not expanding on that joke nope we are leaving it's dead it is gone hit the ceiling and we look see we should break through the ceiling and as a group we said no so let let me okay one final point one final point I just want to make this one serious is it about dongles it's not a about numbers. It's about keyboards. Okay, this is very serious. I just want to talk about this. The whole keyboard travel and all of that stuff, there is actually a company that has really done a terrific keyboard this year and he deserves some acknowledgement. Is it Razor? It's Razor with the

Razor Blade Pro. That's the best laptop keyboard I've yet experienced. It's a mechanical keyboard, but it's low profile and just typing away on that thing is a joy. Now, that laptop costs $4,000-something dollars. So, you know, it's bonkers, but it also, they also have that keyboard as an iPad Pro accessory, the 12.5 inch or 12.9 inch iPad Pro, and that's a hundred something dollars. And you have to, you being our listener, have to try that keyboard out. This is why, this is my standard, basically. When I have something like that integrated into a laptop somewhere and then Apple Apple gives me a travelless, you know, chicklet mess, like with the new MacBook Pro, I, I I have to hold it to the highest standard possible because that's what Apple expects.

That's what Apple speaks about. All right, we got to talk about TV. We're way over time here. Hang on. I'm just going to say one last thing. Looking at this MacBook Pro makes me really wish that the Yoga 910 was just like 10% better and I would probably switch. I'm telling you. This is the year.

This is the year when all comes crashing down. Lock in fatigue. I mean, the Yoga 910 is really nice. The only thing, if the Yoga 910 had an SD card slot, I would say. switch. But it's got Thunderbolt 3. It's got the hinge. It's got a relatively recent processor.

It's got a Core I7. And it's got, you know, the tablet hingey thing. Yeah. Which you totally need. Well, and it's pretty. What gimmick do you want? Do you want a flippy screen?

Do you want a flippy touchscreen or do you want a touchbar? Who knows? Okay. Television. Let me just do this real fast. Yeah. Apple put out a TV app today. It's called TV.

It's very confusing. So it's a TV app on the Apple TV. How do you launch it? There's another app on the Apple TV called TV shows. Right. It's very confusing. Apple appears to be not able to get the deals at once. So they announced single sign-on for cable authentication at WWC.

Apple not getting the deals at once, by the way. They're the only company that can't. Everybody else is like launching TV services. Yeah. But I think their thing is like no one's going to buy those. Like, which is true. I think there's a bunch of failed TV services out there. It doesn't matter.

What they want is for you to have a great experience watching TV. But they're still not getting the deals. So they announced a single sign-on. No one's using it yet. It's in the code of Apple TV right now. It just rolled out in the last update, but no one's using it yet. Most cable companies, I think aside from DirecTV, are pretty hesitant about it. But they've made it this new app that if you download, you know,

you've got a bunch of video service apps on your Apple TV, like watch ESPN or FX Now, or HBO Go or HBO Now, all the video streaming apps. Almost all of the video streaming apps. Well, I'll get to that. They're going to, you push the button on the Siri remote for the Apple TV. The TV button. The button with a picture of a TV. Currently takes you home, but now is going to take you to Apple's TV app.

Yep. Which is not home. Not home. But should have been in the first place. It very much seems like what they released as an app is the thing that should be the home screen of the Apple TV. But they won't do it. It shows you content from around all of the services you subscribe to, except for Netflix and except for Amazon, which isn't on the Apple TV at all.

I think this is just them. They are totally limited and boxed in by a fragmented TV market, and they're just trying to mortar in the cracks with a bunch of stuff so that when it all comes falling down and someone decides to give them the deals, they have a foundation built in place. It's a bad metaphor, but go with me. I don't get it. I'm just going to be honest with you. It's super messy to use because you open this TV app and it's like, here's a bunch of stuff you can watch.

Yep. You click on one of those shows. It takes you out of the TV app and into another app. And then if you push menu in that app, you get dropped into that app's interface. Right. If you push the TV button to go back to the TV app, you don't go back to where you were. You go back to the top of the TV app. How do you get to the home screen?

You push the TV button again. What? Yeah. So if you're in a TV app and you put it. push the TV button? And if you double push the TV button, it takes you to the multitasking interface. You got to be kidding me. I'm totally dead serious. You can quit apps. Does it go 3D? I don't know, man. It's, I will say, I get what they're doing. They're slow rolling this industry. The TV industry is slow and panicky and worried and protective. And Apple's just

slowly building this product. But the thing that makes it go, which is, deals. Money. Money. It makes it. Yeah. It's not there. So what they've done is they say, okay, here's a streaming product, like a box, make apps for it.

And then they're slowly but surely abstracting away those apps. So first they built Siri Search and everybody loves Siri Search. Netflix isn't Siri Search because Siri Search doesn't collect any data, right? Yeah. Now they're building this screen. It's like, here's some stuff you might like. Yeah. Here's what you've been watching.

here's the next episode. All the other TV apps are like fine to be in there. Netflix doesn't give a shit. Because everyone goes to Netflix, Netflix already has all that's viewer data in the world. They don't want to share it. Netflix isn't in there. Amazon doesn't want Apple's box to succeed.

They want to sell you fire TV sticks. So they don't even go on the box. They're not even on the box. And when you ask Apple, why is it Amazon here? They basically sub-tweet Amazon and they say things like, well, it's an open app store. Yeah. Huh.

So I'm going to make a metaphor here And it's deeply wrong And everyone's going to say They announced very proudly their number of apps The Apple TV today 8,000? 8,000, it's a drop in the bucket Yeah

It's, it's, and it's, I don't know if you've used Apple TV apps Yeah, but Minecraft is coming, that'll be a thing Whatever I just think everybody knows this about me I think the TV is It is the thing that the tech industry cannot solve Yep. And nothing about this product.

It is more solutions, but they're like little tiny turns of the screw solutions. And they're not, doesn't matter. So I'm going to say a thing. I'm going to make this metaphor. And you're both going to get real mad at me and say this metaphor doesn't line up. A does not match C and D does not match E. And, you know, it's not, it's not accurate at all. But how does it feel to deal with a crappy industry and then accept a compromise solution at a high level?

It's exactly right. Congratulations, Apple. You just motel rockered yourself. This is the software equivalent of that crappy iTunes motel rocker phone. Only Apple made it itself on its own hardware. Like they just. It's a bunch of hacks. Yeah, it's a bunch of hacks.

It's a bunch of bad hacks that, I mean, I'll try it. I'll use it. But I have zero faith that it's going to be any good. Basically what it is is, you know those sites? Like, can I stream it. It's that expressed through Siri in a new app. They have not gotten to the point where you open the thing, you take an app with you out of the box, you set it up, it says, are you, do you have a cable subscription? And you say yes and it says, enter your Comcast credentials and it downloads a bunch of apps that work for Comcast.

They can't get there because Comcast and basically every other cable company doesn't want them to get there because Comcast would rather you buy an X1 box and do all that shit on X1. Well, and that's to say nothing of doing like the thing that like my wife and, you know, my wife and and I, she, like, has this random app that she uses to just track the freaking TV shows that we're watching. Yeah. Like, I just, I need a central guide that says, like, oh, we, we followed that you have watched these four shows and across these six different apps. And we're just going to keep a list for you so that you can watch the next one and not,

you won't have to worry about what app it's in. Yeah, but you know who you actually need to get that sort of intelligence? The answer is Google. because, guys, listen, I've been using the Google Pixel and anybody who doesn't follow me in Twitter should really jump on Twitter and check it out because I just took a photo of a rainy Manhattan Street in New York, and that is literally,

hands down, I'm channeling a bit of Donald Trump here, the best, the best mobile photo I've ever taken. Yeah, but dude, like Google failed at Android TV. They basically will just tell you that straight out if you like talk to them about it. The Chromecast has worked except that there is like the Google Home app, which is what now the Chromecast app is in terms of like that dream of applying like artificial machine learning intelligence to like actual like real things I want to do.

There are nowhere near that yet. Well maybe maybe that part of Google. I don't think that's the other thing. Google does some things amazingly well and then Google does some things amazingly terribly. But what I will say, the reason I talked about as a pixel is it's got me using more Google services. So I am now intimately familiar with every last detail of Google photos just because the pixel

got me into it. And then I also got into Google Play Music more. And I will tell you, Google Play Music. I just told it I liked dance and electronic music. I picked a few of my favorite artists and it's digging up these people who are like right next to my favorite artists.

No, no. Someone played Vlad to troll me with Google Play Music. We always talk about Google Play Music on this thing and I have always defended it. But on my way home from Apple, Android Auto, the Spotify app on Android Auto is a garbage fire. So I said, okay, screw this. I'm going to go to Google Play Music. And I went to Google Play Music's Indy playlist. They're like default indie playlist, which is the only one they'd show me. I was like, Play this for driving. Like, well, I'm driving. Yes. Indie. Sure. So it's playing it.

The first song, Radiohead, you know, they're there. Really good. I love that song. Love Radiohead. Eli hates it because he's wrong. Sounds like cats dying. And then this is the next things that Google Play Music thought I wanted on their indie playlist in 2016. I'm ready. I'm just going to say the one that has made me, I'm canceling my Google Play music subscription. Are you ready? Ready.

Hootie and the Blowfish. They just went straight to hooty. Anyway, let me finish this TV thing. This podcast is way over. We got to end it. I think someone is going to get there on TV. No, no one is ever going to get there. It's always going to be terrible.

Here's my crazy prediction. I think it's just going to be Netflix. I think Netflix is just going to, they're just going to own that whole market. People are going to steal Game of Thrones. They're going to steal Westworld and they're going to watch Netflix. I mean, we actually need to get into AT&T and Time for our at some point. Can we do this next week? I'm too tired.

My theory is... I don't have the rage in me. Nobody wants anybody else to win. So anybody that gets too powerful, loses the deals. So Apple is too powerful to get the deals. It's not that the thing. suck in negotiating. It's that they're afraid of them. And like if net, anybody that gets powerful

enough to solve it will not get it because nobody wants it solved. Yeah. So and you can definitely see fundamentally, you can look at the Apple TV and what they did today and just see where they hit the brick wall and had to stop. Okay. Guys, you know what? I will take it this much. This is my, as a non-havitual TV viewer perception. I saw the tiny little glimmer of potential. If this actually made this into a really smart TV listings or TV guide, right? Where you're looking at TV listings and you can like literally jump into shows and then jump out and it's just kind of intuitive and logical. Yeah, but that's not how it works.

Because you jump into an app. And it's streamline. You jump into an app. This is what I'm telling you. You don't jump into the show. It opens another app. And then you're not in a unified interface. And that's where it becomes disjointed.

And what I'm saying is it needs to be seamless. It needs to be jumping in and out and it needs to be a unified experience. and Apple is one of those companies that I used to think. This is the difference today. I used to think was capable of doing that. The really crazy thing for me this week, and somebody mentioned this on Twitter, I'm stealing their great idea,

is actually Verge comments, not even Twitter, much better, verge comments. He said, this must be the first time in like seven years where there isn't a single Apple product that I want to buy. And I think that person is right. I don't want an Apple watch. I'm not sure I want one of these new MacBook Pros. I definitely don't give a damn about on Apple TV.

And like, what has Apple really got left now? Yeah. I mean, they've got a bunch of great hardware and millions of satisfied customers and, like, I don't know, the GDP of Australia in the bank. They'll be fun. But you just see where they're hitting the wall. And it's, they'll have to get through it. Okay. That's the show.

I got up. I want to thank Masterclass, again, sponsoring today's episode of Virtast. Masterclass makes the world's greatest courses by bringing you the world's greatest instructors. Aaron Sorkin, teaching Masterclass in screenwriting, contains 35 lessons. six hours of video, over six hours of video, interactive assignments. You learn about the craft of screenwriting. You write your own screenplays. Aaron talks about the rules of storytelling, dialogue, character development, and what makes a script actually sell. You can go watch an exclusive clip of Aaron Sorkin discussing how he writes dialogue. Just go to masterclass.com slash the verge.

There's also a whole bunch of other stuff to listen to. You can listen to What's Tech with Chris Plant. You can listen to Lauren Goods, Too Embarrass to Ask. You can listen to Peter Kafka's Recode Media. You can listen to Careers, RECode Media. You can listen to Careers, recode decode. And you can listen to me and Walt Mossberg on Control and Delete. All that is available

on iTunes. Go to iTunes.com slash Verge. Look at it all. Rate it all. Do that all. Do you can talk to us at Reckless on Twitter. Deutors at Backlon. Vlad, you're at Vlad Saabov.

Am I correct? Yes. That's it. And our glorious producer Andrew Marino. Andrew. With a you. Talk to Andrew.

He's great. I want to just throw it out there again. We were in a very echoly room. We've probably talked to over each other. Sorry about the sound quality. If there's sound quality problems. We're back next week.

Verge is relaunching on Tuesday, new design, new strut in our step. I don't know, a whole bunch of new stuff. Yeah. It's be great. Check it out. Tuesday, November 1, a new verge. It's going to be amazing.

I'm so excited about it. And Vlad, we're going to have to have you on the show some more, buddy. For sure. That's it. Rock and roll. Paul. Paul.